Manhattan ? If you’re looking for a Kansas State University national championship title, look no further than its crop-judging team, which just won a fifth consecutive national trophy.

Faculty adviser Gerry Posler said it’s almost unheard of for a crop-judging team to win five consecutive titles.

“(A school) might win only once or twice in 10 or 15 years, so this is amazing,” Posler said. “We’re on a really good streak with a good string of students who work really hard.”

The three-man team of Mike Epler, Chris Pachta and Cole Taylor won the title for Kansas State this year. But because winning team members aren’t allowed to participate again, a new set of recruits competes for the title each year.

The national crop-judging competition is staged every November. The first regional battle is in Kansas City, and the winner advances to nationals in Chicago.

The competition is designed to mimic tasks performed in the professional agriculture arena.

Teams must be able to pick out different kinds of crops, weeds, seeds and plants, grade eight samples of grain, and do seed analysis.

Posler attributes the team’s success to its “library.”

“We have contest materials from the past 15 years in a freezer, which gives us an advantage; not all schools have that complete a set,” he said.

Taylor, a senior from Jewell, says of the school’s five consecutive wins: “You don’t want to be the team that breaks the string, but it’s also reassuring because we know we have a good coach and the tools to win,” he said.

The Wildcats were challenged in this year’s competition by the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. In the first faceoff, Kansas State beat Wisconsin-Platteville by 90 points, but edged it out by only 7.2 points for the national title.

“The kids were sweating buckets,” Posler said.