Soil Health Management Systems, Online plus 2015 Field Day

Soil Health Management Systems focuses on the challenge of implementing soil health practices in a farming system. This course will guide participants through the process of selecting appropriate soil health management practices to meet farm-specific management requirements and goals. Course materials will explore the key agronomic management principles to improve soil health, including: reduced tillage, cover crops, crop rotations and mulching, with an emphasis on understanding the benefits and challenges of implementing various soil health management practices within diverse agricultural production systems. The online portion of this course must be completed before the field training.

The Wisconsin field training will build on the online course topics through hands-on activities and farm scenarios. It will also focus on the evaluation of various agricultural practices on soil health parameters and the selling of these concepts to producers. Participants will utilize basic evaluation methods to document soil, water and plant properties in the field. Activities will develop participants’ data collection, communication and problem-solving skills through in-field case studies.

Students may enroll in the online course between now and November 30, 2015, and have until December 31, 2015 to complete the online portion. Field training site(s) will depend on the locations of the online student participants, and will be held after the online course is complete.