Special treat now — I caught up with soil health legend Jerry Hatfield to talk about his upcoming presentation at the National Strip-Tillage Conference and also the keys to expanding our knowledge about soil health. Here’s part of our conversation.
Jerry Hatfield: “We want our soil to supply water, nutrients, provide support, oxygen exchange. When you look at all that relative to strip-till, we’re only cultivating a narrow band of this system out there. And you’ve got all the residue on there, so you have protection of the micro-climate, we’ve got that water dynamic, a stable home for the microbes to do their thing. All those different pieces contribute to soil health. What are the avenues to soil health? And then you flip it back and see what strip-till does in terms of those avenues, and they’re headed right down that path. People need to understand that these dynamics are critical to helping us bring all this together. That becomes a critical piece of how we begin this understanding.”
Noah Newman: “What can we expect from a Jerry Hatfield presentation?”
Jerry Hatfield: “It’s really about how do you communicate to producers. I have 45 years of science, but my dad taught me, take all that science and make it understandable for producers. That’s what you get out of this. Everyone in the audience should have something to take away. And if not, ask questions about it. I’m available before and after conferences. How do we work together in this understanding? Because there are things that I admit I don’t quite understand yet because we deal in a complex system. I pick up some of my crazy ideas of what needs to get done from producers that ask questions. It’s about a dialogue and that’s what I hope this presentation does, create a dialogue.”
Noah Newman: “I’ve seen your presentations before. You’ll share some things that are normally complex, but you do a good job of taking that complex data and information and transforming it into a story that’s understandable.”
Jerry Hatfield:“That’s my goal, to make it understandable. When I retired from the USDA, people asked me what I was going to do. I said I’m going to help agriculture. To help agriculture you have to work with agriculture, you can’t just stay above it. You have to get your hands dirty, so to speak. But you also have to pay attention to what’s going on, and not being afraid to say I don’t know, but together we’re going to figure it out.”
Looking forward to seeing Jerry Hatfield at the National Strip-Tillage Conference, July 31-Aug. 1 in Iowa City. For more information, head to StripTillConference.com.
Watch the full version of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.
