The North Central Region Soil Health Nexus is a university-led team dedicated to increasing access to research-based soil health knowledge, extension and resources.
The team was created in 2015 with funding from the North Central Region Water Network. The team is structured around research, extension and outreach, and resources and communications with representatives from all 12 North Central Region states.
Check out our Soil Health Toolbox, including our newly released whitepaper on the connection between Soil Health and Water Quality and our newly created Soil Health Nexus Matrix Decision-Tool!
Also – we are excited to share that several Soil Health Nexus members are hosting a series of virtual trainings on the Financial Impacts of Conservation Practices for conservation educators and farm finance educators this summer! Learn more
Soil Health Digital Café Series
The Soil Health Nexus is hosting a series of informal soil health webinars featuring Extension soil health experts and researchers from across the region discussing the latest soil health research, resources, and news. The webinars will take place monthly; they will be an hour in length with 20-minute presentation, followed by 10-minutes of Q&A and then a casual 30-minute Digital Café where attendees can continue to discuss the topic in more depth with Soil Health Nexus members.
Upcoming Webinar:
Grazing, Cover Crops, and Soil Health
Wednesday, June 21st at 2pm CT
Integrating cover crops into dryland crop production in the semiarid central Great Plains can provide several benefits. These include reduced soil erosion, improved nutrient cycling, suppression of herbicide resistant weeds, enhanced crop profitability and improved soil health. Despite these benefits and grower interest in using CC to improved soil health, cover crop adoption is slow and not widely popular in dryland (non-irrigated) systems because cover utilizes water that otherwise would be available to the subsequent cash crop.
Tune in to hear from Augustine Obour, Associate Professor of Soil Science at Kansas State University as he discusses Kansas State University’s research efforts using cover crops as forage to provide immediate economic benefits to farmers and quantifying the impacts of utilizing cover crops for forage on soil health and crop yields in semiarid dryland systems.
