Wisconsin Ag Connection - Online Soil Health Courses Now Open

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Online Soil Health Courses Now Open
Wisconsin Ag Connection - 09/29/2014

The University of Wisconsin-Extension's Conservation Professional Training Program, in partnership with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, is offering a suite of new online soil health courses. The programs include a choice of field trainings on October 7 in Lena and in Linden on October 16, which provide a variety of innovative soil management solutions to help conservation advisors and producers boost crop production, mitigate the effects of extreme weather events, and create more sustainable, lower cost operations.

The online healthy soils courses include Intro to Soil Health, Cover Crops for Healthy Soils, Soil-Water Management and Soil Health Management Practices. The fee for each online course is $150, which includes an optional one-day field training.

"These courses provide a great progression from beginning to advanced concepts in soil health, including concrete strategies that will create more resilient, productive soils and higher yields down the road," says Kevin Erb, Conservation Professional Training Program director and Certified Crop Advisor. "Taking steps like increasing infiltration and water retention, covering soil and reducing tillage will help retain more nutrients in the root zone and, at the same time, help growers reach their production goals."

Using real, farm examples to reinforce course concepts, participants in the online Intro to Soil Health course will learn about soil characteristics and assessment options as well as a range of practices to improve soil health. The topic courses dig deeper into practices like cover crops, soil-water management, reduced tillage, mulching, crop rotation and other strategies to improve soil health in a variety of cropping systems.

The October field days build on skills introduced in the online courses. Through hands-on activities, participants will be able to evaluate soils using a range of field tests and see the impacts of a variety of practices on soil health.

For more information or to sign-up, call 920-391-4652.

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