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Benefiting from soil microbes headlines Soil Health Symposium

Several South Plains producers headline the 5th annual Soil Health Symposium. Attendees will receive 10 IPM CEUs.

Shelley E. Huguley, Editor

February 7, 2023

2 Min Read
multispecies-cover-bankhead-farm
No-Till Texas Soil Health Symposium to address soil microbes, moisture management and managing pests without pesticides. Shelley E. Huguley

How to use soil microbes to a producer’s benefit is the focus of the 2023 No-Till Texas Soil Health Symposium in Lubbock, Feb. 14-15, says Muleshoe producer and No-Till Texas Vice President Kelly Kettner.

Opening the event, Tim Lasalle, California State University, Center for Regenerative Agriculture & Resilient Systems co-founder, will present, “Building the World We Need: Regenerative Agriculture.”

Attendees will receive 10 IPM CEUs. “We are excited about this because we will be talking about ways to manage pests other than with pesticides,” says Kettner. “It’s also a good reward to attendees for taking two days of their time to attend the conference.

“We are also going to talk about moisture management strategies that help us in our in a semi-arid climate and the importance of livestock integration for soil health."

Several South Plains producers are headlining the event. The producers and their presentation topics are as follows:

  • Kris Verett, Cone- Growing 80-inch Cotton and Multi-Species Covers in a No-Till System

  • Lacy Vardeman, Lubbock- Choices, Choices, We Have So Many!

  • Stephen Harms, Seminole- In Search of a Bright Future Beyond Irrigation

  • Tate Greer, Floydada, and agronomist Jeff Miller, ForeFront Agronomy- Less is More with Wide Row Cotton, Grains and Covers

  • Steve Verett, Lubbock- Adapting to Changing Conditions on the Farm

Also on the agenda are the following guest speakers:

  • John Zak, Texas Tech University- Mindfulness: Do We Actually Know How Soil Microbes Respond to Changing Conditions and What Then Happens?

  • Brandt Underwood, NRCS- Rainfall Simulator

  • Rob Cook, Bamert Seed and Society for Range Management- What Can Native Grasses Teach Us About our Cropping Systems?

  • Gary Zimmer, author and producer, Lone Rock, Wis- Soil Fertility and Health with Less Dependence on Inputs

The symposium, which will be held at the Overton Hotel, will conclude with a panel discussion. “All of the symposium’s guest speakers will participate in the panel,” Kettner says. “This will be an opportunity for attendees to ask questions.”

To register, view the agenda or videos from past symposiums, visit https://www.no-tilltexas.com/register.

About the Author(s)

Shelley E. Huguley

Editor, Southwest Farm Press

Shelley Huguley has been involved in agriculture for the last 25 years. She began her career in agricultural communications at the Texas Forest Service West Texas Nursery in Lubbock, where she developed and produced the Windbreak Quarterly, a newspaper about windbreak trees and their benefit to wildlife, production agriculture and livestock operations. While with the Forest Service she also served as an information officer and team leader on fires during the 1998 fire season and later produced the Firebrands newsletter that was distributed quarterly throughout Texas to Volunteer Fire Departments. Her most personal involvement in agriculture also came in 1998, when she married the love of her life and cotton farmer Preston Huguley of Olton, Texas. As a farmwife, she knows first-hand the ups and downs of farming, the endless decisions made each season based on “if” it rains, “if” the drought continues, “if” the market holds. She is the bookkeeper for their family farming operation and cherishes moments on the farm such as taking harvest meals to the field or starting a sprinkler in the summer with the whole family lending a hand. Shelley has also freelanced for agricultural companies such as Olton CO-OP Gin, producing the newsletter Cotton Connections while also designing marketing materials to promote the gin. She has published articles in agricultural publications such as Southwest Farm Press while also volunteering her marketing and writing skills to non-profit organizations such as Refuge Services, an equine-assisted therapy group in Lubbock. She and her husband reside in Olton with their three children Breely, Brennon and HalleeKate.

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