Posted on August 17, 2021 at 8:26 AM by Iowa Corn
It’s RAGBRAI week, so of course it’s wicked hot out. Improving your farm’s soil health can help store more water in the soil to combat hot, dry conditions. The American Farmland Trust has a free soil health test kit to help farmers create retrospective soil health case studies estimating the economic, water quality, and climate associated with the use of soil health practices.
Or if you want to take a swim to stay cool, restore an oxbow wetland on your farm. These former stream meanders store excess water that might otherwise lead to flooding, filter water to improve water quality, and provide habitat to a variety of wildlife. The Nature Conservancy offers an Oxbow Restoration Toolkit to learn more.
Carbon markets are certainly a hot topic. ISU has released a publication and is hosting a webinar on August 11 to compare the requirements of several carbon markets. The Illinois Sustainable Ag Partnership recently hosted a series of webinars. Click here to watch the recordings. Table comparisons are available for Bayer, Nutrien, and Corteva and CIBO, Truterra, and FBN. Agweb also has a listing of carbon markets.
Stay cool!
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July 29 Farmland Leasing, Oskaloosa
August 3 Farmland Leasing, Marshalltown
August 3 Farmland Leasing, Gladbrook
August 3 Farmland Leasing, Grinnell
August 4 Farmland Leasing, Ames
August 4 Farmland Leasing, Altoona
August 5 Farmland Leasing, Knoxville
August 5 Farmland Leasing, Newton
August 5-6 National Strip Tillage Conference, Omaha
August 6 Cover Crop Field Day, Latimer
August 6 Farmland Leasing, Adel
August 10 Land Management, Webinar
August 10 Farmland Leasing, Ogden
August 11 Carbon Markets, Webinar
August 16 4R Stewardship, Sioux Center
August 17 Farmland Leasing, Winterset
August 17 Farmland Leasing, Indianola
August 24 Monarch Conservation, Webinar
August 24-26 Iowa Drainage School, Nashua
August 24 Drainage Tools, Virtual
August 25-26 Healthy Soil Summit, Virtual
Ryan Heiniger farms with his father in Des Moines County where they have implemented a variety of conservation practices over the years. More recently, they have started to use cover crops, and Ryan discussed the reasons why at his field day.