BringingSoil Health to You: Soil-Con: March 18, 2025

ByTashina Lahr-Manifold, SWCD Soil Health Specialist

Soil-Con 2025 will be held March 18, at the Oakwood EventCenter, Syracuse. This free conference is designed as a working meeting to explore the connections within soil health, soil fertility, ecological risk of pest management strategies, and developing long-term solutions for soil health. This all-day event will have three specialized speakers from across the U.S. coming to Kosciusko County!

The keynote address, Building Soil Health by Managing SoilFertility will be provided by Neal Kinsey, Kinsey Agricultural Services. Kinsey will talk about basic fertility management and how it can be used to improve soil health. Kinsey argues that you cannot have a functioning soil healthsystem, without balanced soils. Kinsey’s talk will focus on the positive effects of correcting soil fertility as part of management on farms. Kinsey will have local soil sample results and will share how he would suggest correcting these soils for optimal production. If you would be interested in analyzing your micronutrient balance, the district has funds available to help you sample your soil.

John Tooker, Professor and Extension Specialist in the Department of Entomology at The Pennsylvania State University will be presenting on the Relationships of Pests and Predators. His research group studies relationships among plants, invertebrate herbivores, and natural enemies to understand factors that regulate populations of herbivorous insects and slugs. The long-term goal of his research is to exploit ecological interactions for sustainable insect pest management.

RJ Rant will discuss the key principles of soil health management strategies that can improve nitrogen use on the farm through C: N ratios. You will learn how to grow your soil, feed your plants, and analyze nitrogen use in relation to carbon in the soil. RJ Rant is the owner of Terraform Ag and Nutrilink Biosystems. After graduating from Kalamazoo College, he took over management of his family’s blueberry farm and transitioned it to USDA Organic status. During this process he found that the products he needed to address his soil and plant needs did not exist, so he decided to create his own. Since then, he has been consulting for farmers across the country and designing products to meet the unique needs of their soils.

This event is free to attend. Registration is required. Please call the office (574-267-7445 ext. 3.) or visit our website(https://www.kosciuskoswcd.org/soil-con-2025) to reserve your seat.