Events Archive
Iowa Learning Farms will hold a webinar on Wednesday, Jan. 13 at noon, that will provide information on pollinators, the threats they face, opportunities for establishing high-quality habitat for pollinators, and how to get projects started.
During this live virtual seminar Billy Beck, ISU Extension Forestry Specialist, will talk about forestry basics and the benefits of trees to farming enterprises. This event is free. To register please call or email Michaela Van De Berg at 515-382-6551, mvandb@iastate.edu
Free tree seedlings will be available for participants from select central-Iowa counties.
Iowa Learning Farms will hold a webinar on Wednesday, Dec. 16 at noon on integrating perennial groundcover into row crop systems. Perennial groundcover systems couple a high-yielding annual row crop with a perennial grass groundcover, such as bluegrass or fescue. In this low tillage system, the groundcover reduces soil erosion, builds soil carbon and soil health, increases water infiltration, and reduces nutrient export — making the overall system more resilient in a cost-effective manner.
Iowa Learning Farms, in partnership with the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, and Conservation Learning Group (CLG), is hosting a free wetland virtual field day on Thursday, Dec. 10 at 1 p.m. The virtual field day will highlight public and private partnerships working together to implement wetlands to reduce flooding and improve water quality in the Middle Cedar Watershed and beyond.
Learn more about the economics behind adopting conservation practices to mitigate water quality concerns during the Iowa Learning Farms webinar on Wednesday, Dec. 9 at noon. Wendong Zhang, assistant professor and extension economist at Iowa State University, will present new survey results on how Iowans value reductions in harmful algal blooms in Iowa waterways, and the economic costs to induce farmers to adopt conservation practices.
Jacqueline Comito | Program Director, Iowa Learning Farms and Water Rocks!
“I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”
Gus Speth, Feb 13, 2015
Co-founder, Natural Resources Defense Council
Iowa Learning Farms, in partnership with the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, and Conservation Learning Group (CLG), is hosting a free virtual field day with Mark Thompson, Webster County farmer who is making cover crops and strip-tillage work in the Des Moines Lobe on Tuesday, November 24th at 1 p.m. CST.
|
Iowa Learning Farms, in partnership with the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, and Conservation Learning Group (CLG), is hosting a free virtual field day exploring impacts of cover crops, tillage and nitrogen-inhibitors on crop performance and water quality on Thursday, November 5th at 1 p.m. CST.
Iowa Learning Farms, in partnership with the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, and Conservation Learning Group (CLG), is hosting a free virtual field day offering a tour of Iowa’s varied forests on Thursday, October 29th at 1 p.m. CDT.
Iowa Learning Farms, in partnership with the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, and Conservation Learning Group (CLG), is hosting a free virtual field day focused on the benefits to the soil, water and the atmosphere when sorghum is added to the corn and soybean rotation on Thursday, October 20th at 1 p.m. CDT.
We will be hosting our second virtual fall forestry field day on October 20th. Filming was conducted at Yellow River State Forest for this virtual field day. The event will feature information about some new climate change research that will be occurring at Yellow River State Forest, an example of shelterwood management practice, and some footage of storm damage from 3 years ago that will help Iowa's forest landowners get some ideas for what their derecho damaged sites might look like a few years down the road.
Check back soon for more information.
To join, please click the following link: https://iastate.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUpduihpj8iE9ZHcjpsenc2DWQILG4...
Iowa Learning Farms will host a webinar about a project that assessed the long-term continued success of three different voluntary watershed management approaches.
Chris Hay, Sr. Manager Production Systems Innovation, Iowa Soybean Association will present on decision trees for edge-of-field practices. Check back soon for more information.
To join click the following link: https://iastate.zoom.us/j/364284172
The Shimek State Forest in Iowa’s southeast corner will again be featured for this year’s fall forestry field day – this time in a free online format. Three educational sessions will highlight different aspects of forestry and birdlife, in a series of short videos to be shown during a webinar Oct. 1 from 11 a.m. to noon.
Iowa Learning Farms will host a webinar on Wednesday, Sept. 30 at noon about Iowa’s weather in 2020. “With 95-99% of Iowa experiencing abnormal dryness or drought and 57 counties affected by the derecho, most Iowans have been impacted by this year’s wild weather,” said Justin Glisan, the state climatologist of Iowa. During this webinar, Glisan will discuss initial drought formation and expansion across western Iowa, as well as the short and long-term impacts of the drought on the growing season and crop production.
Iowa Learning Farms will host a webinar on Wednesday, Sept. 16 at noon about monarch butterfly conservation efforts in Iowa. Steve Bradbury, professor in the natural resource ecology and management and entomology departments at Iowa State University, will provide an overview of monarch butterfly declines over the past two decades, causes of the declines and Iowa’s goal of establishing between 215,000 to 390,000 new acres of monarch habitat in agricultural landscapes over the next decade.
Iowa Learning Farms, in partnership with the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, and Conservation Learning Group, is hosting a free virtual field day focused on redefining the field edge with the use of perennial vegetation on Thursday, Sept. 10 at 1 p.m.
At noon on Wednesday, September 9th ISU Forestry Extension Specialist Billy Beck will give a webinar on storm damage and trees as part of the Iowa Learning Farms webinar series. He will address storm damage and working towards resilient forest and tree resources.
Click here to connect to the webinar or type this link into your web browser https://iastate.zoom.us/j/364284172
The COVID 19 pandemic prevented Iowa State University from holding in-person field days at research and demonstration farms for the summer of 2020. However, the research continued, and a series of virtual tours beginning Aug. 31 will provide an update on this year’s results. On Sept. 1, Matt Helmers, professor and extension agricultural engineer in the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State, will discuss water quality monitoring and research.
The COVID 19 pandemic prevented Iowa State University from holding in-person field days at research and demonstration farms for the summer of 2020. However, the research continued, and a series of virtual tours beginning Aug. 31 will provide an update on this year’s results. On Aug. 31, Daniel J. Robison, holder of the Endowed Dean’s Chair in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa State, opens the program.
Forestry extension specialist Billy Beck will host a facebook live event to address tree damage from the recent derecho storm.
To join this event follow the link below:
https://business.facebook.com/iowastateuniversityextension/videos/304950534062267/
Iowa Learning Farms will host a webinar on Wednesday, Aug. 19, at noon about the connection between soil health and environmental quality in a cover crop and no-till research site. This research connects important topics in the environment and agriculture: soil health, greenhouse gas emissions, and water quality. It is important to know how a given conservation practice impacts all three of these measures of sustainability.
Iowa Learning Farms, in partnership with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Iowa Nutrient Research Center and Conservation Learning Group, is hosting a free virtual wetland field day on Thursday, Aug.