Following a chance conversation at the end of the British Society of Soil Science Annual Conference in Manchester in December 2025, I submitted an expression of interest to join the BSSS sponsored ‘Team GB’ to take part in the 5th International Soil Judging Contest taking place in Nanjing, China, 2-6 June 2026 (ISJC). I was fortunate to be selected, and to become a member of Team GB, along with three others – Jess Brook, Theo Heaton-Davies and Thomas Smith – and our Coach Jay Ryan. We were also lucky enough to benefit from pre-Contest coaching from Richard Hewison.
INTERNATIONAL SOIL JUDGING
International Soil Judging Contests usually occur in the week preceding the quadrennial World Congress of Soil Science, and take place in area around the WCSS location.
National teams of up to four members, along with their coach, arrive from around the world, for three days of intensive classroom and field based soil ‘judging’ training culminating in a final ‘Contest’ day. At Nanjing there were around 22 national teams from around 14 different countries. Some countries entered two teams.
Soil judging has a longer history in some countries than others. It combines ‘soil description’ skills, with ‘soil classification’ and ‘interpretation’ skills. The International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) describes it as ‘a hands-on educational activity, whose participants evaluate soil profiles to classify soils, understand their properties and make land use recommendations’. Soil judging can be carried out ‘as a team’ or as an ‘individual’. The ISJC has both ‘team’ and ‘individual’ contest elements, with both team and individual results contributing to an overall National Team score and ranking in the Contest.
This year, for the first time, participants had to classify soils using both the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) and the US Soil Taxonomy (Soil Taxonomy) classification systems, whereas in past Contests participants were required to use only one, and had the choice between them. This added an extra element of challenge, excitement and (albeit limited) controversy to this year’s Contest!
This year is also the first year that the Contest has benefited explicitly from formal dedicated IUSS Working Group support. The Contest requires a huge amount of preparation, expertise, and practical and physical support – including by local students, and experts joining from around the world, as well as the organising committee. Much of this is an entirely voluntary effort, though some key volunteers benefit from linked complementary admission to the Congress
BEING A TEAM GB MEMBER FOR THE 5th ISJC CONTEST
Pre-Contest
My role as Team member started well before the online and in-person training and involved organising team kit! Which took a surprisingly long time! We ended up with a subtle, practical, and traditional look – in colours, materials and design suitable for the subtropical climate, to maximise insect deterrence, and to acknowledge BSSS support. Although not as beautiful, intricate or amusing as some of the other team’s designs – it felt like a win that were complimented by seasoned soil judgers on the quality of our kit!
Beyond kit, our pre-trip preparation involved many more practical elements – with associated time and financial costs – than we all anticipated, including organising appropriate travel vaccination schedules and ensuring appropriate tech security and internet and communications capabilities while abroad. We had to be sure to be able to communicate with each other, and to report back daily to BSSS.
In principle most important, but overshadowed to a larger extent than expected by the practical aspects above, was the pre-Contest training. This was a convenient mix of online and in person training kindly provided by Jay and Richard. Online, the IUSS also provided an excellent selection of webinars and videos on the IUSS Soil Judging github website https://soiljudgingiuss.github.io/. We all supplemented this with our own incidental findings from the internet, including both serious and entertaining materials posted on social media and online by university and college based soil judging teams, clubs and societies around the world. In terms of field training, I attended a practical session in the Cranfield grounds, organised by Jay and fellow team member Thomas. We went through the Contest literature and a blank scorecard, and Jay shared useful tips on soil texturing and site description. 
In China
On arrival in Nanjing we received a 5th ISJC canvas tote bag with a number of useful items inside – a plastic ‘muffin tray’ type soil holder, a clipboard, and a soil digging tool (for those who were prohibited from bringing tools by train/plane). We also received a beautiful 5th ISJC T-shirt (for which we had provided our size in advance) and a highly useful sun hat with a chin strap. This proved to be a key piece of kit for many participants – as we were often facing sun and wind together. The other key item was an updated 5th International Soil Judging Contest Official Handbook, which we referred to in the training every day, both in the lectures and in the field – and was extremely useful as a reference to have on hand during Contest day too. Its contents echoed much of the training we received, and it had to be used in conjunction with abbreviated/abridged resources based on World Reference Base and Soil Taxonomy that were made available online.
The Handbook and training addressed:
- Site Description: land use, landform, slope position, slope gradient, rock outcrops and surface rock fragments, human-made surface unevenness and litter layer.
- Soil Description: description procedure, layer boundaries, texture, rock fragments and artefacts, structure, soil colour, carbonates, redoximorphic features, aggregated surface features and parent materials.
- Layer designations, according to World Reference Base for Soil Resources and Soil Taxonomy.
- Soil profile characteristics: type of restrictive layer and effective soil depth, hydraulic conductivity, available water-holding capacity, depth of prolonged water saturation, surface runoff, potential water erosion.
- Interpretation to allocate soils to a category of suitability for the following land uses: wheat production, paddy rice production, home gardens and buildings without basements.
- Diagnostics and classification according to World Reference Base for Soil Resources and Soil Taxonomy.
We also received a warm welcome and invaluable introduction to the soils of the Nanjing and neighbouring regions from our hosts, Professors Ganlin Zhang, Biao Huang and Fei Yang, at Institute of Soil Science, which is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. A copy of the appropriate scorecard for the Contest was finally disclosed. This helpfully limits the number of classification options to (more or less) those that can be expected in the Contest area! Seasoned experts Professors Peter Schad and John Galbraith, and younger experts Liz Ereshenko and Will Hernandez, provided us with excellent tuition, and practical exercises, to help us fill in the scorecard successfully!
In addition to the indoor lectures, we took part in training outdoors, with helpful displays and training opportunities in soil texturing, soil structure and soil colour using a Munsell soil chart. We also visited a number of practice soil pits to ‘get our eye in’ for identifying other soil properties and diagnostics, including layers and horizons, and redoximorphic features, and practice describing site conditions, and parent material. It was also a great opportunity to work out the logistics of how we might work best together as a team, and how to do everything oneself for the individual contest!
The practice of going into the pit, and the choosing of tools, was very valuable – as it was more difficult than expected to get a good sample. When there are members of multiple teams in a soil pit together, it feels like everyone ideally wants to get to the same place, nearest the ‘control section’ as it can be tricky to keep a good eye on a marker nail ‘level’ when there are other people between you and the nail. I particularly enjoyed hand texturing and noticing the changes in texture at different levels, and doing the surface run off and water erosion related calculations, which was eye-opening. Practicing under time pressure was very helpful, and fun! 
Everyone was friendly and supportive, and I’d like to say a big thank you to all the teams for their camaraderie, good company and helpful and supportive tips! I would also like to give a particular shout out to the kind Spanish team members for helping me when I had a trip in a soil pit, and to the US team members who generously shared their expertise and experience about the practical aspects of how the soil judging tradition works back home.
BENEFITS OF PARTICIPATION
Soil judging is fun! As well as important and relevant to a sustainable future! Both in the UK and globally!
Being given the opportunity to take part in soil description and classification training by some of the world’s top soil science experts has afforded me an invaluable source of inspiration and the benefit of many lifetimes of experience! Meeting so many enthusiastic team members, coaches, observers and trainers, young and old, from all around the world is likewise inspiring and encouraging! It is a privilege to be part of such a community, and a delight to be among so many people with a passion for understanding soils!
Purely in terms of soil science and practice, my participation has enabled me to deepen my understanding of soil formation and soil processes. From the pre-Contest training through the lectures given by our Chinese hosts, and the explanations given by WRB expert Peter Schad and Soil Taxonomy expert John Galbraith – we delved into the physical, geological, chemical, hydrological and socio-economic aspects of Chinese soils.
A highlight of the week for me was a visit to the new Soil Museum of China! As the first ever visitors to the Museum, which opened specially for our group, I was in awe of the extent and beauty of the exhibits. It contained soil monoliths (slices of soil profiles over a metre tall, attached to a mount) hung on the walls, so one could effectively peer into the soil to see the different layers and horizons. They were arranged largely according to the location they had been extracted from, and so one could see the changes in soil profiles across different parts of China. There was also a display of monoliths from the Chinese Ecosystem Research Network. It was a fantastic educational experience.
Taking part in the event has broadened my knowledge and understanding of soil classification systems. We benefited from the generous training, conversation, and question-answering by those with significant previous experience in soil judging. It felt like there was an attitude and spirit of mutual support, cooperation and education and a shared joy of soil more than competition most of the time. I am extremely grateful for the helpful, insightful and entertaining conversations, and for the time which other participants, coaches, trainers and organisers open-heartedly shared with me. 
I had the pleasure to engage not only with those in the science space but also with experts with past experience in bridging the science-policy interface, including Maxine Levin and Rosa Poch. I was also particularly pleased that the event included a visit to an urban soil pit, as I believe more attention needs to be paid to the functions and condition of urban soils.
THE FUTURE
Taking part in the 5th ISJC has increased my confidence in myself, and what I have to offer to the soil science community, the science-policy interface, and society more generally. I look forward to working with other Team GB members, Jay and Richard, and BSSS to raise the profile of soil judging in the UK. I would love to spend time consolidating my learning, and helping to support interested students and future Team GB members take part in soil judging in the UK and abroad.
I am pleased to have made connections with our host soil science experts, researchers and students in China, and hope to continue connecting with them in relation to science-policy work. Likewise it has been a pleasure to connect with so many soil and soil judging enthusiasts from around the world, and I look forward to keeping in contact with a view to learning more about the mechanics of soil judging contests and opportunities to collaborate with, and take part in, soil related programmes and contests in the future. In particular I am keen to help to work on incorporating more soil biology and soil biodiversity elements to the soil judging training.
CONCLUSION
I would at this point like to say a big thank you to Richard Hewison and Matt Aitkenhead who organised the 4th International Soil Judging Contest in Stirling as part of the World Congress of Soil Science event held in Scotland in 2022. If I had not had the opportunity to take part in the excellent training that they organised in 2022 I would not have caught the ‘soil judging’ bug!
I would also like to express my thanks and deep appreciation to my fellow Team GB members who were such a pleasure to be with and to learn from and with! Huge thanks also to our Coach Jay, and additional Coach Richard – for all their coaching and for valiantly initiating and persevering with all the administration and funding challenges that enabling a Team GB to take part in the 5th ISJC involved! Likewise a heartfelt thanks to all those on the IUSS Soil Judging Working Group, including Brian Needleman, and our Chinese hosts and everyone involved in the organising team for organising such an excellent training schedule and Contest, as well as to all the wonderful soil experts who came to contribute! Thank you also, of course, to the IUSS and to the Soil Science Society of China, and to the Contest sponsors for their contribution to the successful event, and last but certainly not least, to the British Society for Soil Science for being willing to support and fund our participation. I know I speak for everyone in Team GB when I say that we are all most grateful to have had this fantastic opportunity! Thank you!
As our welcoming host Professor Ganlin Zhang highlighted at the beginning of the event – the Contest is important, but it is the training, and the friendships and connections that get formed by the opportunity of coming together that are more so. I look forward to keeping in touch with those I met at the Contest, and am excited at the idea of further honing my skills in soil description, classification and interpretation, and sharing what I have learned with others! 
