Audioonly portion of the webinar. View the webinar at http://conservationwebinars.net to earn CEUs.

Presented by:

Jennifer MooreKucera, Ph.D., West Regional Soil Health Team Leader, USDA NRCS Soil Health Division, Portland, OR

Participants in this webinar will learn about the biological importance related to soil health management. Advantages and limitations for a variety of biological soil health indicators will be discussed including how they are measured and may be interpreted.

As momentum and interest in soil health and soil health management practices grows across the country, farmers, crop consultants, NRCS field staff, and land managers are looking for ways to assess the status of soil health on their fields. The actions performed by the soil biota help to promote soil health by enhancing plant productivity, building stable aggregates, capturing and storing carbon, release of plantavailable nutrients, and detoxifying soil pollutants. There is a great need to identify tools to help direct land management practices that help to support a healthy, diverse, and active soil community. This webinar will explore how soil biota contribute to soil health and high functioning soils and methods currently in use to measure soil biological indicators. However, no one approach is perfect. The advantages and limitations for a variety of these methods will be presented to help audience members better understand how to use them and interpret their values as well as be aware of new tests that are being investigated.

This webinar is presented by USDA NRCS Science and Technology.

Captions will be posted when they are available.