Area Technical Training Team (ATTT) Staff Training

As farmers do more, we learn more. 

In Southwest MN, we have excellent crop and livestock production and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) staff are fortunate to work with many farmers in the area. As farmers are constantly progressing, fine tuning, and trying new things, we are able to learn with them and have a better understanding of how management options impact agronomics, economics, and our soils. Trainings for staff are incredibly important to ensure new information and solid principles are understood to better serve our customers. 

The Area Technical Training Team (ATTT) held a staff training field day August 12th, 2021 with 20 staff attending. The information ranged from equipment, growth stages of corn and soybeans, and soils. Farmers discussed their management strategies, implementation, and outcomes to share real life agriculture for staff to understand.  The farmers that presented have different management which allowed staff to learn planning considerations and effects of both sides of the coin. Staff were also trained to complete some basic in-field soil exploration to understand how soils can function well and how that is impacted by management activities. 

I was fortunate to be able to provide soils training at the event where staff got in the soil pits, used penetrometers, ran the water infiltration tests, and discussed reading the landscape and soils to understand how it’s been managed over the years.