Soil Quality

Spotlights: Role of Healthy Soils in Nutrient Management

October 3, 2011

The East National Technology Support Center's National Soil Health and Sustainability Team embarked on an aggressive agenda this summer to provide soil quality training for states involved in the NRCS Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative (see map below, click for detail). The training theme was "Role of Healthy Soils in Nutrient Management to Improve Water Quality." Using a series of eight 90-minute webinars over a 12-week period, almost 900 logins were used to join the webinars with an estimated 1,350 participants trained nationwide. As word spread about these soil health webinars, participants throughout the country, from Hawaii to Maine tuned in. Please see the agenda in the table below for healthy soils webinar topics and presenters. Click a webinar title to access its replay and PowerPoint presentation files, as well as handouts when provided by the presenter. David Lamm, East NTSC Natural Resources Specialist, coordinated the webinar series.


Webinar Topic	Presenter	Date
Mississippi River Basin Initiative: Understanding Agriculture's Role	Lee Norfleet, Ph.D., USDA NRCS	06/15/11
Understanding Soil Quality Impacts on Soil Functions	Jim Hoorman, Ph.D., Ohio State University Extension	06/29/11
Use of Cover Crops to Add Diversity to Cropping Systems	Joel Gruver, Ph.D., Western Illinois University	07/13/11
The Role of Soil Biology in Improving Soil Quality	Kristine Nichols, Ph.D., USDA-ARS	07/27/11
Soil Quality - The Foundation for Resource Management	Mark Scarpitti, USDA NRCS	08/10/11
Drainage Water Management Awareness - Basic Principles and Practices	Patrick Willey, P.E., Hamid Farahani, Ph.D., Ruth Book, Ph.D., P.E., and Jerry Walker, P.E., USDA NRCS	08/18/11
In-season Adaptive Nitrogen Management Tools for Corn	Harold Van Es, Ph.D. and Bianca Moebius-Clune, Ph.D., Cornell University	08/24/11
Managing Cover Crops for Nutrient Management - A Farmer's Perspective	David Brandt, Carroll, Ohio	09/07/11