There were three webinars announced during the week of May 25. For more information about recently announced field days, visit here.

Recently Announced

June 2 | Crimping Cereal Rye Virtual Field Day

Watch Levi roll-crimp a cereal rye cover crop with two goals in mind: 1). terminating the cover crop without herbicide or tillage and 2). laying down the cover crop as a mulch for weed control. Levi is a partner on a project headed by Kathleen Delate of Iowa State University investigating reduced tillage in organic crop production systems. After a few weeks, we’ll take another look at the field with Levi and he’ll also demonstrate an electric Weed Zapper.

Register for this virtual field day, here.

June 3 | A Paired Watershed Study of the Impact of Stacked BMPs on Water Quality

The long-term monitoring project collected flow and water quality data from paired catchments, one of which has a higher level of best management practice (BMP) implementation. Michelle Soupir, Associate Professor at Iowa State University, will share the results of the project during this webinar. The catchment with a higher level of erosion control practices and nutrient management plans had lower total phosphorus (TP) and total suspended solids (TSS) loads, but not dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP).

Register for this webinar, here.

June 11 | Working with Neighbors to Integrate Livestock and Improve Soil Virtual Field Day

Tom’s goal is to improve the soil on his family’s century farm. To do this, he has been working with neighbors Jim Funke, Jon Merrill and Conner Allender to integrate cattle, sheep and poultry into his cropping system in a variety of ways. They’ve been practicing management-intensive grazing for four years on selected areas.

We’ll see areas where unrolled hay bales were fed prior to cash crop planting and where stockpiled grazing took place. We’ll also see how chickens follow cows, along with pictures showing where soils that were once poor have become productive again. Not only is Tom seeing life come back to the soil and farm, he is building community in rural Iowa in the process.

Register for this virtual field day, here.

 

Upcoming

June 2 | Multiple Benefits of Rye: Calving, Grazing, Harvesting

Alan will take us to his rye fields that provide spring calving pastures and forage for grazing where we’ll try to spot calves in the tall rye. We’ll also learn about harvesting rye to make stored feed and see a demo of Alan making ryelage.

Register for this webinar, here.