The Soil Health Nexus is hosting a series of informal soil health webinars featuring Extension soil health experts and researchers from across the region, who will discuss the latest soil health research, resources, and news. The webinars take place monthly; they are an hour long, with a 20-minute presentation, followed by 10 minutes of Q&A, and then a casual 30-minute Digital Café where attendees can continue discussing the topic in more depth with Soil Health Nexus members.
Upcoming Digital Café Episode
Does planting cover crops pay?
Wednesday, August 19th at 2 pm CT
Why is there is so much disagreement about the benefits and costs associated with cover crops?
Join us for the August edition of the Soil Health Nexus Digital Café, featuring Michael Langemeier, Director of the Center for Commercial Agriculture at Purdue University. In this presentation Michael will discuss cover crop adoption and present three economic scenarios related to key benefits associated with cover crops.
Latest Digital Café Episodes
Soil and Human Health
This webinar was originally broadcast on July 15, 2026.
This July 2026 edition of the Soil Health Nexus Digital Café featured Dr. Jonathan Brevik, Professor of Soils and Geology at Southern Illinois University, as he discussed the ways soil influences our health. Soils provide the nutrient base for our food and the majority of modern medicines, but they can also cause disease. Dr. Brevik highlighted many connections between soils and human health and discuss pressing future research needs in this area.
Soil Color as a Soil Health Assessment
This webinar was originally broadcast on June 17th, 2026.
This June edition of the Soil Health Nexus Digital Café examines how soil color can serve as a rapid, low-cost proxy for estimating soil organic carbon and organic matter across diverse soils. This month’s featured speaker, S. Carolina “Caro” Córdova, an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and a Statewide Soil Health Specialist, will share where color-based predictions work well, where they break down, and what this means for practical soil health and carbon monitoring.
