| Monday Jul 25, 2016 1:00 PM - Monday Jul 25, 2016 5:00 PM | $38.00 - $50.00 |
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Event
Cocktail Cover Crops: Trials and Techniques
Description:
Multi-species cover crop cocktails can create synergistic ecological benefits for your farm or garden - enhancing biodiversity, efficiently capturing and recycling nutrients, and sequestering carbon in the soil. This workshop will explore how to select, mix, and establish various cover crop mixtures. We will also discuss assessment and quantifying how your cover crop practices are impacting soil health.
We will be using a acre fallow vegetable field at Many Hands Organic Farm for demonstration purposes. There will be four different multi-species cover crop trials growing on the farm at the time. During the workshop, Ray Archuleta and Brandon Smith from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) along with Masoud Hashemi from UMass Extension will conduct a number of visual and physical trials on the soil, as well as assess insect biodiversity.
Julie Rawson, farm manager of Many Hands Organic Farm, will also demonstrate no-till techniques, including cover crop intercropping, use of wood chips, and green pathways and in the remaining 1 acres of vegetable land.
There will have a potluck lunch open to all participants at noon prior to the workshop.
About the Instructor:
Brandon Smith is the Northeast Region Team Leader for the NRCS Soil Health Division. He has provided leadership on implementing soil health assessment and management planning through NRCS programs to other Northeast NRCS and external partners in the regions varied production systems. He earned his Ph.D. from Cornell in 2006 and a M.S. and B.S. from the University of New Hampshire. He has extensive experience with mineral nutrition and root nutrient uptake mechanisms, pH and micronutrient interactions, organic production, cover cropping, and conservation tillage approaches.
Ray Archuleta is a Conservation Agronomist at the NRCS East National Technology Center, in Greensboro, North Carolina. Ray teaches soil health and the principles of agroecology throughout the country. He has 25 years of experience with the Natural Resources Conservation Service working in New Mexico, Missouri, Oregon, and now in North Carolina and has held the following positions: Soil Conservation technician, Soil Conservationist, Nutrient/Irrigation Specialist, Water Quality Project Manager, District Conservationist, and Area Agronomist.
Masoud Hashemi is associate professor at UMass Amherst Stockbridge School of Agriculture. His research activities are mainly focused on the sustainability of farming systems through diversified cropping systems. He is particularly interested in integrating cover crops to enhance nutrient recovery and recycling, weed suppression, and improving general soil health.
Julie Rawson, executive director of NOFA/Mass, has been farming all her life, raising all certified organic vegetables on 1-2 acres for the past 30 years. Her farm has recently gone no-till.
To Join Nofa/Mass goto www.nofamass.org/membership
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LocationMany Hands Organic Farm (View)
411 Sheldon Road
Barre, MA 01005
United States
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