21Feb/24

Soil Microbial Biodiversity in Field Crops

The February Soil Health Digital Café featured Benjamin Agyei-Kwado, graduate student in cropping systems agronomy at Michigan State University, and Eric Anderson, Michigan State Extension Field Crops Educator, who discussed their work on soil microbial biodiversity in field crops. This presentation was originally broadcast on February 21, 2024.

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24Jan/24

The Economics of Relay Cropping

The January Soil Health Digital Café featured Ross Evelsizer, Natural Resources Project Director for the Northeast Iowa Resource Conservation and Development, Inc. Ross discussed the MultiCropping Iowa project. Multicropping Iowa focuses on bringing value to diverse crop production. The project started in 2018 and has focused primarily on relay cropping with cereal grains and soybeans with 34 successful in field trials since the start of the project. This presentation was originally broadcast on January 24, 2024.

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15Nov/23

Conservation Finance Trainings: What We Have Learned

In this webinar, Jenny Seifert, Marcelle Lewandowski, Anna Cates discuss a SARE-funded effort to develop training on finance for conservation professionals and conservation for ag finance professionals, including resources on curriculum and lessons learned in pilot trainings. This presentation was originally broadcast on November 15, 2023.

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18Oct/23

Bioenergy crop Miscanthus x giganteus acts as an ecosystem engineer to increase bacterial diversity and soil organic matter on marginal land

In this edition of the Digital Café series, we hear from Dr. Zac Freedman, Assistant Professor of Soil Microbiology and O.N. Allen Professor of Soil Microbiology at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. This presentation was originally broadcast on Wednesday, October 18, 2023.

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20Sep/23

Detangling Fact from Fiction: The Impact of Manure on Soil Health in the Semi-Arid West

In this edition of the Digital Café series, we hear from Dr. Linda Schott, Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in Nutrient and Waste Management at the University of Idaho. Dr. Schott shares data from several projects about the impact of manure/compost on soil health properties including POxC, infiltration, aggregate stability, etc. This presentation was originally broadcast on Wednesday, September 20, 2023.

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19Jul/23

State of the Soils: A soil health assessment across Washington’s diverse soils and systems

This edition of the Soil Health Nexus Digital Café series featured Dr. Deirdre Griffin LaHue, Assistant Professor of Soil Health and Sustainable Soil Management at Washington State University. Dr. LaHue discusses the Washington State of the Soils Assessment Project and the Washington Soil Health Initiative, preliminary findings, challenges, and next steps. This presentation was originally broadcast on Wednesday, July 19, 2023.

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21Jun/23

Grazing, Cover Crops, and Soil Health

This Digital Cafe features Augustine Obour, Associate Professor of Soil Science at Kansas State University, who 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. This presentation was originally broadcast on Wednesday, June 21, 2023.

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28Apr/23

New Whitepaper Explores the Connection between Soil Health and Water Quality

The Soil Health Nexus is excited to debut two new resources on the Soil Health Toolbox! Two Soil Health Nexus members, Francisco Arriaga, Associate Professor and Extension Specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Anna Cates, Assistant Professor and State Soil Health Specialist at the University of Minnesota, recently published a long-awaited whitepaper exploring the connection between soil health and water quality.

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19Apr/23

Top 10 Impacts of Cover Crops for Soil Health

This Digital Café features Dr. Rob Myers, Director of the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture and also Regional Director of Extension Programs for NCR-SARE, discussed several of the key ways that cover crops can improve soil health. These factors include nutrient cycling, soil organic matter, rainfall infiltration, addressing soil compaction, aggregate stability and impacts on earthworms, mycorrhizal fungi, and other aspects of soil biology. This presentation was originally broadcast on Wednesday, April 19, 2023.

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15Mar/23

Lessons learned from on-farm cover crop research in Nebraska

In this Digital Cafe, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Assistant Professor Andrea Basche and PhD graduate student Fernanda Krupek share results from five-year on-farm experiments conducted through a partnership program with Nebraska NRCS and the Nebraska On-Farm Research Network. This includes findings on how cover crops impact soil properties, nutrient cycling, weed communities and best practices for sampling at the farm scale. This presentation was originally broadcast on Wednesday, March 15, 2023.

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