Farming with Soil Life Virtual Short Course: Southeast Region

Join the Xerces Society’s Farming with Soil Life Short Course (virtual via Zoom) to learn about beneficial soil life! This online course will highlight the importance of macro and micro animals in soil that contribute to maintaining healthy and productive soils on working lands, the functions they perform, and guidelines for optimizing land management practices to support diverse soil fauna. This course is free to attend, but registration is required. Visit the Xerces Society’s events page for more info. Learn more and register here today!

This short course training is funded by Southern SARE as a Professional Development Project and designed for farmers, working lands managers, NRCS staff, Soil and Water Conservation District staff, Extension Specialists and Educators, Agronomists and other agricultural professionals, and conservation practitioners in the Southeast SARE region (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, OK, SC, TN, TX, VA) interested in increasing their ability to interpret and manage land to support diverse aboveground and belowground ecosystems, while also increasing crop resilience and soil health.

Learning Objectives

Improve technical knowledge of major soil invertebrate groups in the southern SARE region, including identification, ecology and roles in soil health, scouting methods, and conservation strategies.

Be able to conduct hands-on scouting and sampling of soil animals to evaluate species diversity in agricultural settings.

Understand how invertebrate diversity may be used as a rough bioindicator of soil health, and learn to compare the diversity of soil animals across areas with differing management practices.

Learn practical, science-based conservation strategies to help increase the abundance and diversity of soil animal life, and how USDA Farm

Bill conservation programs may be used to support adoption of these strategies.

Increase adoption of management practices that support soil invertebrates and soil health.