Soil Health Field Day: How to Determine if your Soil is Functioning

Join SFA’s Kent Solberg and Doug Voss along with Lake of the Woods Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD) and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) staff for an afternoon in the field.

We will be looking at ways we can evaluate whether or not our soils are functioning properly. Hosted on Bill Bendickson’s farming operation, we will discuss the context of the farm and the crops produced, utilize a rainfall simulator to see the effects of rain on differing soil management methods, and then have rotating break-out stations to try out methods for evaluating soil health. This will be an action-packed afternoon, come ready to learn!

Agenda

• Bill Bendickson – talk about his farm and what he is doing
• Rainfall simulator
• Breakouts
  • Slake test, nitrate test strips – NRCS SWCD station
  • Soil samples, temperature, soil moisture, – NRCS SWCD Station
  • Shovel test, penetrometers, – SFA Station
  • Refractometer, ring infiltrometer, – SFA Station
• Come back together and discuss soil tests – Haney, PLFA, TND.

This event is free to attend. Registration is requested, and walkups are welcome. This workshop is being made possible with funding provided by the Clean Water Land and Legacy Amendment.

Directions: Signs will be placed to help people find the location. A tent will be set up in the field.

• Starting in Williams
• Travel north on County Road 2 (Wilderness Avenue) for 2 miles
• Turn east on County Road 58 (24^th Street NW) travel 1 mile
• Turn south on County Road 61 (70^th Ave NW)

Info: Jonathan Kilpatrick

SFA staff and volunteers occasionally take photos during our workshops, cafe chats and field days for promotional purposes and to use as documentation of events to share with our funders.  If you do not wish to be photographed, please let our event host know — we’ll make every effort to make sure you are not photographed.