Scoop up some soil in your hands and consider there are more organisms in that handful of soil than humans who have ever lived. Soil is a living entity in its own right, a community of micro- and macro-organisms that interact with the earth’s mineral resources to create this complex entity that undergirds all life on the planet. The 54th Nobel Conference, Living Soil: A Universe Underfoot, invited participants to consider the vast diversity and complexity of soil, and to ponder the challenges we face in protecting this most fundamental resource.

The Soil Health Institute and Cargill conducted this project to provide farmers with the economics information they need when deciding whether to adopt soil health practices and systems. The 10 farmers interviewed in Minnesota grew crops on an average of 1930 acres, using no-till on 54% and cover crops on 48% of those acres. Fifty percent of the farmers interviewed reported increased yield from using a soil health management system, and none reported a yield decline.

The goal of this training is to become familiar with terms and procedures, recognize features of different equipment, and make you more comfortable with surveying concepts. When you can get hands on experience, this training should allow you to understand procedures for completing a survey more quickly. This session covers general surveying concepts, what styles of surveying are used for various practices, the equipment commonly used in Minnesota’s field offices, and the principles of recording notes to document a survey.

This webinar will discuss the fundamentals of composting and how preprocessing of carcasses combined with forced aeration of the piles optimizes the entire mortality composting process and how this process has evolved over two decades with NRCS oversight and support into a simple state-of-the-art method of mortality management.

The webinar will provide viewers with an understanding of the principles of successful composting of animal mortality in routine and emergency situations.  Mortality composting is a known strategy of the agricultural waste management system.  The principles of proper mortality composting will be discussed.  Discussions will also include the composting process, trouble shooting techniques, what is considered compost, how properly composting animal mortality impacts bio-security.

Mike Krcmarik, NRCS Ag Engineer, provides an overview of several ag waste related practices and example scenarios to help decide in practice selection. Such practices include Waste Storage and Transfer, HUAP, Roofs and Roof Gutters, Animal Mortality, Composting, VTA, Closure of Waste Impoundments, Waste Separation Facility, and Anaerobic Digester.

Part of the Soil Health Nexus Digital Cafe Series, Deann Presley of Kansas State University presents “Teaching Soil Health from a Soil Pit”. Everyone is searching for “the” soil health test, but truth be told, the most meaningful way to learn more about your soil is to dig a hole. Soils have inherent soil properties that they inherited from the five soil forming factors of climate, organisms, relief, parent material, and time. And, soils have dynamic properties that can change quickly with a change in management practices.

Part of the Soil Health Nexus Digital Cafe Series. Join Dr. Amy Schmidt and Karla Melgar from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln to learn how to estimate carbon degradation and positive impacts of manure application for soil health using Photoshop and the “soil your undies” experiment as a visual tool to understand the dynamics of organisms in carbon transformation.

Callie Bertsch, NRCS State Forester, Craig Peterson, NE Area Engineer and John Crellin, NE Area Resource Conservationist discuss planning and design of the Forest Trails and Landings practice (CPS 655).