Farmers, gardeners, and homeowners can face different challenges in managing and building soil health. Mike Parrish, senior extension agent with Virginia Cooperative Extension in Dinwiddie County, encourages everyone to do their own research and side-by-side trials. Learning by trial and error allows for direct comparisons and works in a specific context. Mike works closely with commercial growers who grow everything from corn, soybeans, cotton, cereal rye, and other agronomic crops, but also provides educational programming to homeowners and other landowners who might have a problem with soil compaction, water holding capacity, or other common soil ailments.

Mike emphasizes that cover crops are applicable to cropland, a garden, and even a lawn where the soil is ailing and not functioning as it should. For gardeners and homeowners, Mike advises everyone to take advantage of Virginia Cooperative Extension's Master Gardener programs and resources.

Additionally, Mike does a fantastic job at communicating and educating just how diverse Virginia's agriculture is through videos and storytelling. In the course of the conversation, Mike discussed the Desktop Farm Day website he has developed to improve agricultural awareness and literacy about common farm questions and everyday activities, which can be accessed at https://sites.google.com/vt.edu/desktop-farm-day/home

Learn more about the Virginia Soil Health Coalition, join the 4 the Soil conversation, and read the latest Soil Health Tip Tuesday blog post at https://www.virginiasoilhealth.org/ and https://www.4thesoil.org.