The Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Allegheny County Conservation District will host the 3rd annual Western Pennsylvania Regional Soil Health conference March 7 at the Atrium banquet facility, 1031 New Castle Road.

The event will feature Jim Hoorman from our soil health division. Hoorman has spent years as an Ohio State Extension educator and recently joined NRCS.

His talks will cover no-till, continuous living cover crops and other best management practices and will focus on improving the soil biology and its role in enhancing plant nutrition.

By focusing on improving your soil you can reduce external inputs and protect your operation from environmental swings allowing you to be more profitable year after year.

He will also speak on cover crop selection and nutrient cycling. This talk will focus on the timing of adding covers, how to maximize nitrogen use and improving your soil’s water holding ability. Without the use of covers in your operation you’re leaving money in the field and this talk will focus on easy and cheap methods to capture and hold those nutrients for the long term.

John Tooker, entomologist from Penn State, will give a talk on neonicotinoid seed treatments and their impacts on slugs and other beneficials. This will be an excellent and informative talk illustrating how seed treatments, sold as a beneficial preventive, could be doing more damage than realized.

With the threat of a wet, cold spring right the around the corner, this will be a well-timed talk.

The final speaker will be Steve Groff, an experienced no-till and cover crop farmer from Lancaster. He works as a cover crop coach working with farmers and farming groups to educate them on the value of cover crops and how to maximize the benefit of covers on the operation.

Groff’s talk will highlight how to successfully terminate covers, planting mixes and common issues and obstacles that can be encountered when adding covers to a rotation. This will be an excellent, hands-on talk that both beginners and experienced cover croppers will glean information from.

Doors will open at 9 a.m. and include light refreshments. The event will run from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and feature a buffet style lunch.

To register or for more information, contact Emily Wise at the Allegheny County Conservation District at 412-241-7645 or visit ACCDPA.org. The cost is $20 if registering by Feb. 22 and $25 after.

Andy Gaver is a conservationist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Butler County.