Latest / The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast / Episode 29 | Meet the New Illinois NRCS State Soil Health Specialist
Transcript
- Episode 29 | Meet the New Illinois NRCS State Soil Health Specialist 00:00:07:01 - 00:00:34:04 Todd Gleason This is the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast. Episode 29 meet the new Illinois NRCS state soil health Specialist. I'm university of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Well, the Natural Resources Conservation Service in the state of Illinois has created a brand new position called the state's Soil Health specialist. And Stacy Zuber is its first occupant. I asked her to tell me a little bit about her journey to this position. 00:00:34:11 - 00:01:07:06 Stacy Zuber I am from Illinois. I grew up in southeast Illinois, near only Illinois. Grew up on a corn, soybean, wheat farm. So I have a little bit of that farming experience. My dad still farm, and then I ended up going to grad school at the University of Illinois, here in Champaign, and did some research in western Illinois looking at long term crop rotation and tillage and how those practices can influence soil health metrics. 00:01:07:08 - 00:01:32:14 Stacy Zuber And so I got to work there with them, ultimately soils. And then after I finished grad school, I went east and I went to Purdue University, got to work in Indiana on a project with, Conservation Cropping Systems initiative. We did, on farm research with some of the commercial soil health tests. We look at how sensitive those tests work, the different management practices. 00:01:32:14 - 00:01:51:15 Stacy Zuber We looked at cover crops, we looked at tillage. Some other things as well. Those are the main ones that we focused on. And then I went west to Missouri, and I was at the University of Missouri. And again worked with some soil health data there. And they had a project, that was a statewide cover crop cost share program. 00:01:51:15 - 00:02:22:06 Stacy Zuber And as part of that, they, farmers would send in soil health samples that got analyzed. And I got to work with idea site with over 5000 different field, soil samples from those fields that we were looking at. And we were able to really see for these different health metrics how, the inherent soil characteristics influence the those measurements and how, the management that was kind of had a chance to work in some of the nearby states as well as in Illinois on soil health. 00:02:22:06 - 00:02:38:29 Stacy Zuber And so I'm like with this position, I'm really happy to be able to be back in my home state, being able to apply some of the things that I've learned in other states and how they have worked, with farmers and with conservation partners on soil health and increasing adoption of, for health management systems. 00:02:39:01 - 00:02:46:18 Todd Gleason So can you tell me a little bit more about these soil health tests and exactly what they measure or are supposed to try to measure? 00:02:46:23 - 00:03:07:27 Stacy Zuber Yeah. So they're trying to measure the soil function. So we're talking about soil health, everything to do with soil health is really focused on how the functions are happening. What are the processes happening within the soil. So so the different fields have kind of looked at different aspects of the soil and how it's functioning, so soil organic matter is 00:03:07:27 - 00:03:36:22 Stacy Zuber The one that most people know it's usually included in your soil facility test so that's really important. It's very closely related to almost every soil function. But it can take a number of years to change. So a lot of these soil health tests are, are supposed to be more sensitive. We're trying to see those changes in a shorter period of time and maybe 1 to 3 years instead of 3 to 5 or longer that you might it might take to see changes in a soil organic matter. 00:03:36:24 - 00:03:57:19 Stacy Zuber So some of those really active carbon is a measurement that looks at a specific portion of the organic matter. That's the part of the organic matter that's decomposing that microbes, that food source. So that's a good indicator. Within 1 to 3 years, that down the road you will see improvements in your soil, organic matter. 00:03:57:19 - 00:04:21:28 Stacy Zuber You will see increases in the organic matter in a few more years. You're not seeing it yet in the overall pool. But if you see those changes in active carbon, measurement, in a short period of time is the bigger changes in the organic matter down the road. And then there's other ones related to nutrient cycling. We have things like soil protein that tells us the nitrogen that's stored in the organic matter, most of that stored in the protein. 00:04:21:28 - 00:04:45:14 Stacy Zuber And then as microbes are able to eat those proteins and that nitrogen, gets mineralized and gets released in, in available form. So they're available for your crop to take that up so we can look at, the nutrients there. And then I think one of the most important metrics that's out there is aggregate stability. And that's one where it tells us about the structure of the soil. 00:04:45:16 - 00:05:12:22 Stacy Zuber And it can tell us if that soil is able to resist erosion, and also tells us about how well that soil can have, infiltration of water, how long that soil can store water as well, because what with the aggregate, basically that we have all these particles, mineral particles within the soil that are held together with organic matter are kind of acting as the glue holding them together to form these aggregates. 00:05:12:24 - 00:05:45:29 Stacy Zuber And around this aggregates you have pore spaces opening where you can have air and water moving through the soil. So if you have good aggregates stability, you have these aggregates that stay together and resist breaking apart. Then you have those forces of water to be able to infiltrate. And it can be a sign if you have poor aggregate stability that you may have compaction issues because your soil, particles may break apart and start, sticking together very, very closely, not leaving any pore spaces behind. 00:05:46:02 - 00:06:05:17 Stacy Zuber That can also lead to problems with ponding of water when we have these heavy precipitation events, because now there's nowhere for that water to go in. You can have ponding or that can also because you have reduced infiltration, mean selective runoff. And with that, now you have these loose particles that can erode away and leave your soil surface. 00:06:05:17 - 00:06:24:02 Stacy Zuber So yeah, those are just some of that. Then there's many, many more, indicators out there that are available. But most of these are available from, from many different commercial labs. And I think those four that I mentioned are kind of the ones that I think if you're going to look at these types, those are the ones to start with. 00:06:24:04 - 00:06:41:29 Todd Gleason Yeah. So, so I, I'm going to put this relatively bluntly, but just, just because as you listen to it, you might you might be thinking to yourself, okay, cool for you because you're a scientist and understand it all, but you do think that this is useful and the producers might explore it as well? 00:06:42:00 - 00:06:47:13 Stacy Zuber I think it can be useful, but I think it has to be used properly. 00:06:47:16 - 00:07:08:07 Stacy Zuber You have to do some extra things for soil health, differently than you would for soil fertility tests to really get the bang for your buck, so to say. I mean, they are they are more expensive tests, you're talking somewhere, you know, the cheapest ones if you get them individually a lot of times are at least $20 a test, up to 100 or $110. 00:07:08:09 - 00:07:32:14 Stacy Zuber So they are quite expensive. So you really, have to do everything exactly right. Every time you do these tests, you can get, valuable information. And that's tricky because these tests, a lot of them are focused on the soil biology about your soil microorganism. And most microorganisms are very patchy within the field. There's a lot of spatial variability. 00:07:32:16 - 00:07:57:04 Stacy Zuber Sometimes a lot of the sites are really clustered in certain areas. So you have a lot of them around farm roots. You have a lot of them near the surface. You have them in pore spaces, but not, in the inside of aggregate. You have these different areas where you have lots and lots of these, organism. But other areas where basically there's not very many of these, microbes living. 00:07:57:06 - 00:08:20:28 Stacy Zuber So you have to be really careful that you're getting consistent conditions every time you're sampling. So I think the two ways you can use these tests, are to compare very different management practices. Let's say you, when you're comparing conventionally tilled system with, corn, soybean with no, cover crops, you want to compare that to a no. 00:08:20:28 - 00:08:42:03 Stacy Zuber till system with cover crops. That is a great way to do this. But you have to make sure that your the soils that you're comparing are very similar that to the same soil type. And you seeing landscape position. Because if those are different you're going to get different results regardless of what management practices you're doing. Because the soils are so different. 00:08:42:05 - 00:08:58:19 Stacy Zuber So so that's one thing. But then the other way that you can use this a little health test are to monitor over time. And I think this is probably the biggest value for most farmers is to be able to look at these little health measurements and look at them. How are your soils, is your soil changing? 00:08:58:22 - 00:09:23:25 Stacy Zuber How is your soil health improving over time as you're using these, conservation practices? But with that, you still have to be careful that you're being consistent. And so, I mean, I would recommend that you do these, these tests if you're going to monitor them over time every 3 to 5 years. You don't need to do them more frequently than that, because you probably aren't going to see changes that rapidly. 00:09:23:27 - 00:09:37:28 Stacy Zuber It's better to do it every 3 to 5 years. But that's a lot of time in between there. And I don't know about you, but I can't remember every exact details of what I did. I'm going to go and take a sample one time, and then three years later, expect to be able to get it to match up. 00:09:37:28 - 00:10:04:04 Stacy Zuber So it's really important to write down all the details about what you did when you sample. So you can match that to what time of the year it is. What's the soil moisture like? How even something as mundane as how close to living plant roots are you taking the samples? Are you taking them right by your plant roots, or are you taking them, kind of in the middle between your rows? 00:10:04:06 - 00:10:21:19 Stacy Zuber When was the most recent tillage or fertilizer, or when was the last time that the soils were limed, all of those things can really influence the soil biology. And since that's what you're measuring, you really need to look at those, and make sure you keep them as consistent as you can, or at least be able to know what they are. 00:10:21:19 - 00:10:40:13 Stacy Zuber So you can think, well, maybe the reason why I'm getting the results this time is because I recently, fertilize it. Maybe it was that instead of the fact that your soil health went down, it might not be that there might be something else to explain it. But if you don't write these down, it's really hard to know. 00:10:40:14 - 00:10:47:02 Stacy Zuber You need to have as much information as you can, so that you can get as much value out of these tests. 00:10:47:05 - 00:10:56:24 Todd Gleason And finally, you are the first state of Illinois soil health specialist with NRCs. Do you know why the position was created? 00:10:57:01 - 00:11:11:04 Stacy Zuber I think there was more and more interested as well over the years, especially recently. And there are several states that have already had this position, some states that even have, you know, multiple soil health specialists within their states. 00:11:11:07 - 00:11:32:03 Stacy Zuber But I think for Illinois, there was one of the driving factors to this was there was this big national push from the national headquarters, and NRCS to do more things with soil health for each state to develop a soil health strategy. So I think this was the perfect time for them, where they were already looking at trying to put this transition in place. 00:11:32:03 - 00:11:50:21 Stacy Zuber But then, because of this national question, was a little easier to justify why we needed it. And I think it's, you know, the soils of Illinois are amazing, they’re are some of the best soils in the world, in my opinion, in this state. And I think it's really important that we protect them, that we improve them. 00:11:50:21 - 00:12:02:14 Stacy Zuber But I think it's a great time to do this, to have this action, put in place and, and have a person on staff specifically dedicated to working on soil health. 00:12:02:16 - 00:12:15:03 Stacy Zuber Stacy Zuber is the very first NRCS state soil health specialist in Illinois. She joined us here on the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction podcast. I'm Extension's Todd Gleason.