Project Overview
Annual Reports
Commodities
- Vegetables: beans, carrots, cucurbits, eggplant, tomatoes
Practices
- Crop Production: conservation tillage
- Education and Training: demonstration, extension
- Natural Resources/Environment: carbon sequestration
- Pest Management: biological control, botanical pesticides, chemical control, cultural control, disease vectors, economic threshold, field monitoring/scouting, integrated pest management, mulches - killed, mulches - living, physical control, sanitation, traps, weather monitoring
- Soil Management: green manures, organic matter, soil analysis, nutrient mineralization, soil chemistry, soil microbiology, soil physics, soil quality/health
Abstract:
The overall goal of this project is to develop, deliver, and evaluate a comprehensive training program about soil health with specific applications to sustainable vegetable cropping. The training involves online learning and face-to-face hands-on workshops. The primary audience is K-State Research and Extension county/local educators who identified this as a professional development need. Other participants include NRCS educators and a few Extension Master Gardeners.
Project objectives:
Broad learning objectives of our targeted audience include: i) Develop an understanding of the structure, function, and biological complexity of soil; ii) Learn and practice skills to measure and assess soil quality; iii) Build a toolbox of various methods including cover crops to improve soil health; iv) Understand the concepts of ecological pest management; v) Practice whole-farm system planning; and vi) Understand sustainable vegetable production.