CASI Website Blog Release

January 25, 2019

Rob Roy, NRCS Agronomist in the Fresno Area 3 office, took part in the Soil Health Institute's (SHI) conference held in Chicago, IL January 23^rd and 24^th and represented the longstanding NRI Project that he's been involved with since 1999 in Five Points, CA.  The Chicago meeting brought together folks from about 120 long-term agricultural experiment sites across Canada, the US, and Mexico to begin planning and to launch preparations for the sampling phase of this major new soil health effort.  The project will assess 31 indicators of soil health and till work to develop widely acceptable soil health measurements and standards, as well as “launch a comprehensive evaluation program that relates soil health to quantified productivity, economic, and environmental outcomes.”  Roy has been an integral member of the NRI Project team since its start and is a frequent partner in education events and training activities associated with the project.  The NRI study site compares four soil management systems including standard tillage without cover crops, standard tillage with cover crops, no-tillage without cover crops and no-tillage with cover crops.  The project site in Five Points has evaluated this systems that have been consistently maintained now for twenty years.  The Five Points NRI study site is a unique resource that has evaluated the combination of reduced disturbance and cover crop management in California's high-value annual cropping context.  In the Chicago meeting, Roy learned about the SHI's plans for sampling and had the chance to interact with folks from other long-term studies.  Our thanks go out to Rob Roy for representing our CASI/NRI team in Chicago!