Insights from the Dairy Soil and Water Regeneration Project

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The Dairy Soil & Water Regeneration started in 2021 and is studying soil health and manure management and their effects on greenhouse gas reduction, water quality improvement and agronomic factors such as yield and forage quality on working dairies and research farms in major dairy regions.

Dairy Stream host Joanna Guza and guests, Dr. Mara Cloutier and Dr. Dennis Busch, discuss the following topics: 

• Strides and accomplishment since last Dairy Stream episode in 2022
• Common design of the project
• Research at UW-Platteville
• Importance of nutrient management in soil health management
• Most impactful conservation practices
• Economics of new practices and processes
• Baseline survey
• Farmers adopting new practices
• What’s next for the project

 About the guests:

• Dr. Mara Cloutier is a research soil scientist and program director at the Soil Health Institute who oversees the organization’s scientific and data management contribution to the Dairy Soil & Water Regeneration project. 

• Dr. Dennis Busch is a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville whose work centers on applied agroecosystem research, with an emphasis on pasture- and crop-livestock systems, soil and nutrient dynamics, and long-term field experimentation. 

Resources:

• Dairy Soil & Water Regeneration website 
• Project video 
• Frequently asked questions 
• Wisconsin soil health assessment webinar 
• Dr. Mara Cloutier video clip 
• Dr. Dennis Busch video clip 
• Dairy Stream Rewind: National-scale project examines dairy’s greenhouse gas footprint

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