SD Soil Health Coalition hosts annual Soil Health School

By Ariana Schumacher Agweek

GARRETSON, S.D. — The South Dakota

Ariana Schumacher / Agweek

Around 40 producers attended the Soil Health School

Soil Health Coalition hosted their eighth annual Soil Health School on the farms of Anthony Bly and Bruce Carlson near Garretson, South Dakota, at the end of August. The event consisted of classroom conversations and in-field demonstrations about all topics surrounding soil health management.

This was Jesse Devine’s second time attending the Soil Health School. The farmer from Yankton, South Dakota, has been working to integrate soil health practices throughout his operation.

“It’s a similar course as last year, but man there is still things that refresh my memory from last year, things I forgot and things I am relearning. Even if I have heard something a hundred times, there’s always something to learn from it,” Devine said.

Devine, who farms in Yankton, South Dakota, along with working a full-time job, has been working to integrate soil health practices throughout his operation.

“It just seemed like we were hitting a roadblock with production with the quote-on-quote conventional methods,” Devine said. “The expense, the intensity. Trying to find a maybe little bit better mouse trap to get a little bit more production and quite frankly to save time with full-time jobs. We don’t have a whole lot of time to spend days upon days in the tractor making multiple passes and feeding cattle. If we can let our crops do that for us, hey perfect,” Devine said.

The Soil Health School is open to 30 to 40 producers each year and covers a wide variety of soil health topics.

“We just cover about everything you can think of from soil health. We go over how soil functions, why it’s important to have soil functioning, how to keep it functioning, and then we also go through livestock demonstrations and how you can utilize livestock on your operation,” said Shawn Freeland, chairman of the South Dakota Soil Health Coalition.

This event brings new ideas and refreshes some old techniques for South Dakota producers.

“Just seeing if there’s a better mouse trap, a different method, Devine said. “I am always trying to do something different. It kind of flies in the face of everything we used to do where it was always the same year after year, now we challenge ourselves to try to find a new method, a new way to make things better.”

“What we like to do is just plant the seed and there’s five soil health principles, if we can get them to start with one or two and then understand how important the rest of those principles are and