Session 2: Resources for Observing, Monitoring & Increasing Understanding of On-Farm Soil Health

Description:

The purpose of this session is to work with farmers to share some of the ‘best available information’, tools, Native Hawaiian ‘ike, farm mentors, local service providers and researchers to support the observation and monitoring of  on-farm soil health. These resources will expand over the next few years as we grow our farmer-to-farmer soil health network. This session was most recently held with a cohort of farmers from Hawai’i Island at O.K Farms with Troy Keolanui and special guest speaker, Kristy Lam with the S(HEE)R – Soil Health Environment and Ecosystem Resilience Lab. O.K farm’s agroforestry plot. The vision for installing the 5 acre agroforestry plot amongst O.K Farm’s orchard operation and the needs and concerns for scaling this design was shared with the group of farmers, along with the design, field prep, installation, maintenance and ongoing monitoring for their agroforestry plot. 

During the workshop, farmers passed around a bag of soil from their farm as a means to share about the properties they observe with their soil. As part of this conversation, cohort members discussed challenges, goals and practices for managing soil moisture, drainage, compaction, aeration, nutrient retention and cycling, soil aggregate structure. Following the Round Robin, the workshop speakers shared traditional and modern tools and practices used to observe and monitor soil health in the field.

Learning Objectives for cohort participants:

• Co-create and identify a diversity of traditional and modern tools and practices used to observe and monitor soil health in the field;
• Gain a working knowledge of a suite of tools and practices that can be used to observe and measure improvements in soil health on their own farm;
• Empower each cohort member to develop a personalized soil health field assessment for their farm and monitoring schedule;
• Increase confidence in developing a monitoring schedule and applyingbest practices for tracking soil health on their farm (time of year, location consistency, recent disturbance, weather);
• Ability to identify synergies with other farmers in the cohort (e.g. similar operations, management challenges, or phases of development, shared interests in trialing practices, equipment or sourcing inputs).
• Observation & Assessment Tools
  • USDA Web Soil Survey – create a soil map or run a soil health report based on the physical, chemical and biological properties of your soil order & series
  • Ulukau – Native Hawaiian Place Names
  • Historical Use/Oral Histories- learn from kupuna in your community
  • Soil Fertility Test- Please reach out to your local CTAHR extension agent
  • Comprehensive Assessment of Soil Health- The Cornell Framework 
  • NRCS Soil Health Assessement Resource Page
  • NRCS Cropland In-Field Soil Health Assessment Guide
  • NRCS Cropland In-Field Soil Health Assessment Worksheet (see screenshot below)
  • UH Soil Health Environment and Ecosystem Resilience Lab S(HEE)R Lab
  • S(HEE)R Lab Stories
  • Hawai’i Soil Health Tool

Screenshot: Example of field indicators developed by NRCS for assessing soil health.