No-till on the Plains offers innovative workshop focused on reducing the fertilizer budget
No-till on the Plains is offering a new workshop just prior to the 23rd annual Winter Conference. This is a unique opportunity for producers to take an in-depth look between fertilizer, plant health and soil health. Conducted by educator Joel Williams, the day-long workshop Reducing the Fertilizer Budget will be held in the Century II Convention Center in Wichita, Kansas, on Jan. 28, 2019.
Joel Williams is an independent plant and soil health educator, a healthy soils advocate and presenter on soil biology, plant nutrition and integrated approaches of sustainable farming. Joel has worked on conventional and organic farms improving biological farming practices in Australia and the United Kingdom, integrating soil chemical and biological assessments along with plant nutritional analysis as a joined-up strategy for plant management.
“Over the last ten years my observations and experience with agriculture soils convince me we are underselling the value of the biology” Williams says. “Gaining a greater understanding of the benefits to crops from the biological community is the best way for producers to become more efficient with their inputs.”
The workshop will be an intensive day covering the following topics:
- Soils in transition: Improving input efficiencies and unlocking soil nutrients;
- Leveraging existing soil fertility and optimizing purchased inputs;
- Nutrient behavior in soils;
- Carbon-input complexes, improving input efficiency;
- Foliar applications—tips for a top response;
- The living soil and organic carbon: The centerpiece of soil health;
- Ecological succession and fungal, bacterial balance;
- Integrated pest management: Understanding plant health and resilience;
- Understanding the nutritional drivers of plant immunity;
- Disease management, novel approaches to managing plant immune responses;
- Plant health and nitrogen management—not enough or too much? and
- Weeds as indicators: Fungal bacterial ratio, detoxifying herbicide.
Visit www.notill.org for online registration or call 785-210-4549 for registration information. Cost is $200 and includes lunch.
