Presentations
T8
Soil & Water
Tue, Dec 14, 2021
8:00am to 8:50am
T1
Soil & Water
Tue, Dec 14, 2021
1:00pm to 1:50pm
Advancements in Soil Health Interpretation for Producers
The Soil Health Assessment Protocol and Evaluation (SHAPE) is a new soil health interpretation tool designed by USDA and University scientists. SHAPE currently provides scores for five soil health indicators and accounts for regional differences in soils and climate. Future work will improve the models behind the scoring curves and will expand SHAPE to include a wide range of indicators and common laboratory methods. Ultimately, this flexible framework is intended to support soil health testing for producers across the U.S.
Speaker
Kristen Veum
Dr. Veum is a research soil scientist with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service in Columbia, Missouri. Her research is cross-disciplinary and includes soil health assessment for environmental and agronomic sustainability and protection. She focuses on cropping systems and the role of land use and management practices on soil health and evaluates soil health indictors for use in farmer assessments. Currently she is leading the development of a new soil health scoring system that provides a framework for interpreting soil health measurements. Dr. Veum is a board representative to the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), co-founded the ASA Soil Health Community in 2014, partnered with colleagues to form the Missouri Soil Health Consortium, and serves as a scientific advisor for multiple national soil health initiatives.