The Cedarcrest FFA Landscape team won the state competition on March 24. It’s a competition that sounds simple; look at some plants, name them and then design a landscape. But it’s a much more difficult process.

“We have to identify about 120 to 130 plants,” Ben Benson said. “And what’s so tough about it is they might get a twig of a plant, a part of the leaf or piece of bark. I know what a bald cypress looks like, I can identify it, but if you just give me a piece of bark, I don’t think I could. That’s what we do in this competition.”

The contest is composed of five individual events — a general knowledge exam, identification of 116 plant species, landscape estimating, a written assistance exercise, and a nursery production exercise — and one team event. The team activity involved a landscape drawing and presentation of the drawing to a panel. The written exercise included a hand-written business letter.

Team members include Kendra Mutch (Top individual score in the State), Ben Benson (second individual in the state), Zakya Misallati, Nicole Ballard, and Brittney Trujillo.

The championship earns the team an invitation to the 2016 National FFA Convention in October in Indianapolis.