MAKING THE BEST BETTER – CALIFORNIA DISTANCE 4-H HORTICULTURE TRAINING
Search For Excellence in 4-H Programming
Michael Rethwisch
Farm Advisor - Crop Production and Entomology
University of California Cooperative Extension
Blythe
Team Members:
Rethwisch, M*1
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Farm Advisor - Crop Production and Entomology, University of California Riverside County Cooperative Extension, Blythe, California, 92225
Abstract
The California distance 4-H Horticulture training program was developed to meet preparation needs of California 4-H members who had qualified to participate in the national 4-H Horticulture contest. These youth qualified by being among the top senior division individuals in the California 4-H Horticulture contest. As California is a large geographic state, getting the qualified youth (each may be in a different county) and coach together to prepare/practice was both time and logistically challenging, with the most extreme distance youth over the past 4 years being 870 miles away from the coach, and the closest about 500 miles. Initial training attempts in 2022 used slide projectors, slides and a few zoom meetings for distance training, but these were not highly impactful as youth had a hard time seeing the details on their computers/phones and did not have in-hand materials. During 2023-2025, the philosophy for training the youth was to master a bit at a time (spoon feed) rather than throw too much all at once at youth. To accomplish this, “daily doses of horticulture” were shared with participants via daily e-mails, consisting of 1-2 focused horticulture subjects (ex: trees with needles for leaves, nightshade family vegetables, etc.). During 2023-2025 over 60 such educational pieces were developed, along with practice/review materials to help youth gain confidence and subject matter mastery. This required many pictures to be taken and/or found to help the youth see the necessary details to separate various types of plants. These were also accompanied by weekly zoom sessions the month prior to the national contest, where specimens were reviewed via training games. When comparing the identification portion of the much more challenging national contest with their scores from the state contest, marked improvement was noted during 2023-2025 of 64.6%. In 2022 the increase was 21%. During 2023-2025, three different California 4-H members who participated in distance training have been the top 4-H contest individual. Three (3) individuals have placed in top 5 each of the past 2 years, leading California to 2 consecutive national championships. Training materials are being shared with 4-H personnel in adjacent states.
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