West

Recordings of General Sessions

Opening remarks by Jane Hardisty (USDA-NRCS Indiana) with video message Bill Northey (Iowa Secretary of Agriculture) Keynote: Growing a Revolution - Bringing Our Soil Back to Life, by David Montgomery (University of Washington) Farmer panel: Experiences with Cover Crops and Soil Health, with Dan DeSutter (Ind.), Trey Hill (Md.) and Jimmy Emmons (Okla.) Top 10 Ways Cover Crops Build Soil Health, by Rob Myers (North Central SARE) Plenary session: Carbonomics, by Keith Berns (Neb. farmer and Green Cover Seed)

Digging into Soil Health

Soil Health Principles Soil Health Testing and Practices Soil Biology and Organic Matter

Cover Crop Role in the Cropping System

Cover Crops and Nutrient Management Cover Crop Impacts on Diseases and Insects Cover Crops, Herbicides and Dealing with Herbicide-Resistant Weeds

Economic and Environmental Aspects of Cover Crops

Economics of Cover Crops Business Opportunities with Cover Crops and Soil Health Environmental Impacts of Cover Crop Systems

Special Topics with Cover Crops and Soil Health

Organic and Specialty Crops Grazing Cover Crops Soil Health Policy Issues

Vegetable and Weed Degree-day Models

Pest managers are familiar with the concept of using degree days to predict pest outbreaks. Insects, like many other organisms, develop according to the temperature around them and degree days are a way to measure accumulated temperature. Plants – at least in part – also develop based on temperature, so a team in Oregon is […]

Innovative Assessment Helps Farmers in the Northeast Improve Soil Health

Improving soil health without understanding the soil's condition is not easy and traditional soil tests, though important management tools, don't provide information on the physical structure or microbial life living in the soil. That is why a multidisciplinary team at Cornell University created a soil health assessment, which measures physical, chemical and biological indicators as […]

2015/2016 Report from the Field

Read about SARE-funded work in the areas of sustainable dairy cropping systems, soil health assessments, nutrient management, cover crops, beginning farmers, pollinators, technical assistance programs for women farmers, and more. This edition includes highlights of projects funded through the graduate student program, and the highly regarded Sustainable Agriculture Fellowship, a professional development program coordinated by SARE and NACAA.

Cover Crop Innovators Video Series

Find short video profiles of farmers around the country who are using cover crops on their land.

National Continuing Education Program

This program is designed for Cooperative Extension and Natural Resource Conservation Service personnel, and is also open to farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural professionals nationwide. It emphasizes core concepts and a basic understanding of sustainable agriculture, its goals and its relevance to every farming and ranching operation—large or small. The core of the national continuing education program is a series of three online courses. Take them now.