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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).

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.

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. Getting out a shovel is the very best way to learn about both inherent and dynamic soil properties.

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.

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.

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.