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
Soil and Human Health: Current Status and Future Needs
Wednesday, July 15th at 2 pm CT
Join us for this July edition of the Soil Health Nexus Digital Café, featuring Dr. Jonathan Brevik, Professor of Soils and Geology at Southern Illinois University, as he discusses the ways soil influences our health. Soil usually isn’t the first thing people think of when their health comes up, but there are many connections. Soils provide the nutrient base for our foods and the majority of modern medicines, and they can also cause disease or illness. The connections are both direct and indirect. Dr. Brevik will highlight many connections between soils and human health and discuss pressing future research needs in this area.
Latest Digital Café Episode
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.
