ISU to host first ever soil conference

by | Jan 11, 2016 | 5 Ag Stories, Audio, News

by Ben Nuelle

Iowa State University will host first ever soil health conference. The soil health conference is titled ?Strategies for Building Healthy Soils?. It will take place February 2nd and 3rd at the Scheman Building on the Iowa State campus in Ames.

ISU Soil management specialist Mahdi Al-Kaisi says farmers need to focus on conservational practices.

?That is a critical component to take care of many different problems that we experience with weather variability. We have a lot of erosion with high intensity rain and couple that will high intense tillage which creates a lot of problems for degrading soil quality and organic matter?.

Kaisi says if we want to fix water quality we have to start at the field level.

?That?s basically to implement some conservation practices. The research is telling us we need to do a better job in managing our soils and that?s what the focus is going to be. There will be a lot of presentations based on the current research including tillage management, residue management, cover crops and different techniques to help improve both soil and water quality,?.

The first ISU soil health conference takes place February 2nd and 3rd at the Scheman building on the ISU campus. Pre-registration is required. The conference will also offer CCA credits for anyone interested.