Soil conservation and management is the focus of this month’s Purdue Crop Chat podcast, a regular podcast from Hoosier Ag Today and the Purdue University Extension Service that features soybean specialist Shaun Casteel and corn specialist Dan Quinn. On this episode, Shaun and Dan welcome Shalamar Armstrong, associate professor of soil conservation and management at Purdue, to discuss soil health practices, the impacts of certain cover crops, and the emerging carbon credit markets that are generating a lot of interest from farmers.
“Although the market is in its infancy stages, it has the potential to pique great interest. So, anytime that we could find a practice or market that helps to absorb some of the cost of adopting conservation, we’re going in the right direction,” Armstrong says. “Now, the market is kind of volatile. It needs some regulation to it. That’s fine, but I would say to farmers don’t be afraid of it. Attack it you just like you’re trying to pick out your corn hybrid.”
Armstrong says to those who are interested, do your homework. There are different programs out there.
“Look at pros and cons and if you get a situation where there’s a contract that is pay for practice, you can’t really lose there because you get paid for practices that you probably were going to do anyway if you’re conservation minded.”
Armstrong talks more on carbon markets and discusses some interesting research they’ve conducted on cereal rye and the impacts it can have on key nutrients in the soil in the latest Purdue Crop Chat podcast found below.
