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Soil Health

This soil health curriculum teaches learners to assess soil using their senses, observations, and testing. They will explore how soil affects crops, develop management plans, and use crop rotation to improve long-term soil health.

Curriculum

Curriculum

Getting to Know Your Soil

This module teaches learners to use their senses and observations to assess soil, identify issues, improve soil health, and understand how field variability affects crop growth.

Participant Handouts:
Coming soon

Activity 1: Digging a Soil Pit

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Activity 2: Detecting Hard Pans In the Field

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Activity 3: What is the Soil's Texture?

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Activity 4: Identifying Soil Type

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Activity 5: Where is the Organic Matter? Let's Look at Soil Aggregates​​

How Can You Improve Soil Health?

This module helps learners understand soil testing, practice sampling with a lab of their choice, select activities to address soil improvement goals, and determine necessary soil inputs.

Participant Handouts:
Coming soon

Activity 1: Testing Your Soil for Nutrients

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Activity 2: Selecting a Soil Lab

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Activity 3: Understanding Your Soil Test

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Activity 4: Planning for Soil Inputs: Fertilizer and Compost

Plan to Improve Your Soil

This module guides learners in applying soil health principles by considering environmental and farm-specific needs, building knowledge through soil health assessments, and gaining confidence to develop their own soil management plans.

Participant Handouts:
Coming soon

Activity 1: Assessing a Field’s Soil Health

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Activity 2: Building a Soil Health Plan

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Activity 3: Financing Soil Health Practices

Designing a Crop Rotation Plan

A crop rotation plan maps out what to grow each year to improve soil and crop health. Tracking pests, diseases, and plant health helps refine future planning, allowing farmers to adjust based on past challenges and successes.

Participant Handouts:
Coming soon

Activity 1: Collecting Information to Build Your Farm Plan

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Activity 2: Making a Farm Map of Fields

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Activity 3: Designing Crop Rotation Plan

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Activity 4: Including Cover Crops in Your Crop Rotation Plan

Additional Resources
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This work is supported by the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program grant no. 2021-70033-35833 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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