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A Website for Many Purposes – Soil Quality
The
Soil Quality National Technology Development Team is collaborating with the
National Soil Tilth Lab, NCERA-59 scientists, and the Department of Natural
Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign to develop Soil Quality,
a web-based, central clearinghouse for soil quality information. The
Soil Quality clearinghouse presents basic
soil quality concepts for beginners and will guide advanced users through
specifics for soil quality assessment and management.
In addition to providing soil quality information to a worldwide audience,
Soil Quality will be used to meet NRCS
training objectives. Students attending the NEDC course "Soil Quality
Assessment and Applications for Field Staff," (the revised version to be piloted
during Spring 2009) will complete pre-course assignments by visiting Soil
Quality allowing formal training time to be used more efficiently.
The Soil Management Assessment Framework (SMAF) is a soil quality indexing tool
that launches from Soil Quality SMAF that provides site-specific interpretations for
measured soil properties. SMAF allows users to input their own lab data or
'what if' scenarios to investigate climate, crop, soils, and management effects
on soil quality.
Described as 'Soil Quality for Environmental Health,’ Soil Quality is an experiment
in the participatory development of a website to keep content current and
provide content authors on-line publication credit for their contributions.
Your contact is NRCS ecologist
Dr. Holli Kuykendall at 336-370-3341. | | |