Soil Health: Opening the Black Box in Specialty Crop Production Systems
Soil health is now widely regarded as the foundation for sustainable production systems. This presentation will provide evidence to support this assertion by summarizing results of recent studies demonstrating clear relationships between soil management practices, soil microbial communities, nutrient cycling and susceptibility of crops to plant and human pathogens. Strategies that growers can use to improve the health of their soils and better support beneficial microbial inoculants will also be covered.
Speaker
Lori Hoagland
Lori Hoagland is an Associate Professor and Soil Microbial Ecologist in the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at Purdue University. She leads a research program investigating mechanisms mediating beneficial plant-soil-microbial relationships with the long-term goal of developing practical approaches to leverage these relationships to improve the productivity, quality and safety of specialty crop production systems.