2011 Iowa State University PLANET

Student Career Days

Five students from the Iowa State University Department of Horticulture competed at the national Professional Landcare (PLANET) Student Career Days at Joliet Junior College in Joliet, Illinois March 17^th-20^th 2011. This year’s event was during Iowa State’s Spring Break so we had a much smaller team than the past few years. Faculty members Ann Marie VanDerZanden and Mike Reinert accompanied the group as team coaches, and Department Chair Jeff Iles attended the event on competition day. National and regional companies within the landscape industry sponsor this annual event, and this year brought together nearly 1000 students from 64 colleges and universities. The event provides students the opportunity to test their horticulture and landscape skills against their peers and to network with industry leaders through the career fair and numerous workshop sessions. Industry representatives attend this event in an effort to recruit some of the best horticulture students in the nation.

Of the 25 different competitions, Iowa State horticulture students participated in 9 events including:

Our trip was made possible in part by the generous support of the ISU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the ISU Student Affairs office and the Hunter Industries.

This was Iowa State’s sixth year to compete in the event. We are looking forward to next year’s event in Manhattan Kansas hosted by Kansas State. 

Josh getting ready for the skid steer loader event. 

Scott, Zach and Jason working hard during the landscape installation event.  

Josh driving and Jacob directing him through the obstacle course. 

Jacob (left) and Zach competing in irrigation assembly.  

Josh (left) and Scott building a paver patio. 

The Association of Collegiate Branches is the undergraduate organization of the American Society for Horticultural Sciences (ASHS). Its main purposes are to encourage undergraduate participation in the ASHS, to provide a forum of exchange from club and professional ideas, and to act as an official agent for undergraduate horticulture students.

MACHS stands for the Mid-American Collegiate Horticultural Society and includes collegiate horticulture clubs from 12 Mid-American states including: Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

In spring 2005 MACHS was held in at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. Eighty-four students from 13 schools attended. They gave tour of the CSU campus along with many other exciting places such as the Denver Botanical Gardens, and the Denver Zoo. The 23 acre Denver Botanic Garden was filled with wonderful specimens from around the world.

Iowa State University has participated in MACHS for several years. The students always do well in the various competitions, and took first place in 2003 and 2004. The competition has three sections: plant identification, general horticulture knowledge and plant judging. The students network with industry professionals and visit horticulture points of interest in the host state. The ISU Horticulture Club hosted the conference in 2002.

Students emphasizing the turfgrass option and in the Turf Club also have been very successful in a national competition known as the Turf Bowl, which is held at the National Golf Course Superintendent's meeting each year. This is a 3-hour exam that tests the students on their knowledge of plant identification, mathematics, plant pathology, soils, and entomology. They have taken first place in 4 of the last 5 years in the competition that generally has 60 or more teams competing from around the U.S. In 2005, the ISU Turf Bowl teams took 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 23rd places. Also in 2005, the ISU sports turf team placed 2nd at the National Sports Turf Managers Conference in their first year of competition.

Turf Bowl Champs