A team of students from LSU competed in the National Weed Contest held in Columbus, Ohio, July 21. A team of four students won third place in the southern regional category. Team members, from left, are Tommy Batts, Josh Copes, James McKibben, Eric Bergeron, Brandi Woolam, Matt Foster, Ben McKnight and Sam Rustom. (Photo by Bruce Schultz, LSU AgCenter)

News Release Distributed 07/31/15

BATON ROUGE, La. – An LSU team took third place in the southern division of the National Weed Contest on July 21.

Approximately 25 universities with over 200 students from the U.S. and Canada attended this year’s contest in Columbus, Ohio, hosted by Ohio State University.

“The LSU team placed third overall in the Southern Weed Science Society Regional Contest behind two Arkansas teams,” said Eric Webster, LSU AgCenter weed scientist and coach of the team. “I thought everyone did well.”

Josh Copes placed seventh in the Southern Weed Science Society contest, and Brandi Woolam placed first in herbicide identification.

Members of the team that placed third were Ben McKnight and Copes, doctoral students, and Eric Bergeron and Tommy Batts, master’s degree students.

Members of the second team, all master’s degree students, were Woolam, Matt Foster, James McKibben and Sam Rustom.

The competition included sprayer calibration, written calibration, weed seed and plant identification, herbicide identification and a farmer problem scenario.

The final scores have not been tabulated to determine how well the teams performed nationally.

Assisting Webster was LSU AgCenter soybean specialist Ron Levy.