FFA Attends First Citrus Competition of the Year

FFA members thoughts for FFA’s first competition of the year

By: Adam Lopez

Redwood FFA went to their first Citrus competition in Porterville on Saturday, January 4th, 2025. The members who participated all seemed to enjoy their time.

Bellajon Pitman, ‘27, says, “Citrus was really fun. It was good for our first competition. We did better than what we expected, and we all worked really hard studying, the week up till we went. We weren’t all there, which sucked, but we did really good.”

Axl Mernard, ‘27, says, “it’s always fun to get new people involved in Citrus Judging.”

The members all agreed that they tried their best in the overall outcome of the competition.

Axl says, “ We didn’t place the best of the whole competition, but we tried our best.”

Fenton Mernard, ‘27, says, “ We didn’t get any awards from it, but, we made it to Porterville for a day, and we each got a grade for each plant or fruit that we got, or that we had to judge. I did alright, and my team did pretty well.”

With the first competition done for FFA, that leaves the members with hopes for the next competitions.

Pitman says, “ For this next competition I hope that I’ll place or one of my teammates will place for A or B team.”

Fenton says, “ I hope for the next competition I get better at talking with the judges and memorizing all the imperfections of an orange.”

With it being their first competition of the year, we’re left to wonder: what was their thought process going into the competition?

Pitman says, “ During Citrus, I just really lock in and I think about what I’ve learned and what I remember. There’s a lot of different ways to identify fruit and citrus and throughout lemons, oranges, and mandarins. You have to decide a lot. There’s also a [part] called ID, [in] which you find everything that’s wrong with the fruit and they line it up on a table and you have to figure it out.”

Tags: citrus, clubs & lifestyles, ffa competition, rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, rhs