Interested in cover crops and soil health? Take advantage of the opportunity to hear from National Soil Health spokesperson for the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, Ray Archuleta, at the "Cover Crops in a Corn/Soybean Rotation Field Day" on November 13.

Archuleta, also known as "Ray the Soils Guy," talks about soil health and agroecology across the U.S. He will be joining the speaker line-up at this event, which is focused on integrating cover crops into a corn/soybean rotation.

The field day begins with registration at 9:30 am at the American Legion in Okabena, located at 166 Minnesota Avenue, Okabena. The program starts at 10:00 am.

Hands-On Learning About Cover Crops

Following lunch, attendees will travel to the Jerry and Nancy Ackermann farmsite, located at 39750 820th Street, Lakefield, for further presentations and in-field activities. The field day will end at 3:30 pm. There is no fee for the program, courtesy of program sponsors, and pre-registration is not required.

The speaker lineup also includes Michael Lehman, research microbiologist with the USDA/ARS in Brookings, SD. He will discuss the potential benefits of using a cover crop from a soil microorganism perspective, and attendees will be able to view soil biological activity through use of the Prairie Ecology Bus--a traveling lab complete with microscopes for hands-on learning. Scott Wells, University of Minnesota cropping systems agronomist, will also discuss the latest in U-M cover crop research.

Local farmers Jerry Ackermann, Jerry Perkins and Dave Christoffer will discuss their experiences with various cover crop seeding methods, timings and mixes.

Liz Stahl, Extension crops educator, will present results from cover crop demonstration trials conducted in corn in southwest. Jill Sackett, Extension educator in ag production systems and co-coordinator for Minnesota North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, and Stephanie McLain and Loren Clarke, district conservationists with the NRCS, will also be speaking at the event.

Please dress appropriately for the weather as participants will have the opportunity to conduct indicator tests of soil quality under different cropping systems in the field, weather permitting.

Program sponsors include U-M Extension, NCR-SARE, the USDA-NRCS, AgStar, Extended Ag Services, FCA Co-op, the Heron Lake Watershed District, Jackson County Corn and Soybean Growers Association, Jackson County SWCD, La Crosse Seed, Nobles County Corn and Soybean Growers Association, Nobles County SWCD, and the Okabena-Ocheda Watershed District.

For further details about the program, check out the program flyer. For more information or questions, please contact Liz Stahl at 507-372-3900; email, [email protected]

In case of inclement weather, please call the Farm Information Line (1-800-232-9077) for weather related updates.