Ohio State University Extension developed The Dirt on Soil Health: Investing Below the Surface webinar series this past winter. The eight-week program featured Extension professionals, industry representatives, and farmers as presenters. Topics included:
- Does it Pay to Improve Soil Health on Your Farm?
- What Can Soil Health Tests Tell You?
- Can Improving Soil Health Improve Yield?
- Cover Crop Management for Soil Health
- Compaction Solutions
- Using Ohio Data to Improve Soil Health
- What’s the Return on Investing in Soil Health?
- Programs and Funding to Support Soil Health
A program survey evaluation of participants was conducted at the end of the webinar series. A total of 102 responses were recorded; around half of the responses were from farmers. Highlights of farmer responses are provided below. (Other responses were from nonprofit educators and crop consultants and showed similar trends).
What are your goals in improving soil health?
|
Goals |
Percentage |
|
Increase biological activity |
76.4% |
|
Increase profit |
74.4% |
|
Improve water retention |
69.8% |
|
Decrease erosion |
65.1% |
|
Reduce weeds/pests |
60.5% |
|
Increase yield |
60.5% |
|
Reduce fertilizer cost |
60.5% |
What soil health practices are you using or plan to use?
|
Practice |
Percentage Using |
Percentage Who Plan to Use |
|
Soil testing |
87.9% |
6.0% |
|
Reduced tillage |
90.3% |
6.5% |
|
Cover crops |
61.8% |
20.6% |
|
Manure/compost |
51.9% |
7.4% |
|
Diverse crop rotation |
41.4% |
6.9% |
|
Intercropping |
10.3% |
24.1% |
What specific topics do you suggest for future programming?
Responses to this question can be grouped into the following five themes:
- Carbon
- Cover crops
- Soil and fertility
- Biologicals
- Economics
A few quotes from participants are provided below:
- “Great job by all the presenters and the moderators keeping it going.”
- “The webinars I watched were extremely well conducted and very helpful presenters. I want to watch more recordings. Great job!”
- “Best series of winter meetings.”
We value the input received from the evaluation and will use this information to plan future OSU Extension programs on the important topics identified. We appreciate those who attended or watched a recording of the soil health series. Recordings of each session are available on the OSU Extension Agronomic Crops webpage at: https://agcrops.osu.edu/events/webinar-recordings.
Lean more about current on-farm research focused on soil health on pages 222-225 in the 2020 eFields Report at https://digitalag.osu.edu/efields/efields-reports or by contacting your local county Extension office. Additional information about soil health is available at https://soilhealth.osu.edu/