A workshop to help farmers maximize their return on investment in regard to soil fertility will be held in Washington County this week. The Soil Fertility Workshop will focus on soil nutrients and calculations. Field agronomist Rebecca Vittetoe shares the focus of the workshop will be how soil samples can help farmers prioritize their dollars, “It starts from when we take that soil sample, even if you hire that done, what we need to think about when we take our soil samples to when we get those results back from the lab, what does x part per million of phosphorus or potassium mean, and how do we make fertilizer recommendations off of those soil test results. So, we’ll be walking through how we interpret those soil test results, as well as then how we make recommendations for how much fertilizer we do we need to put on so we’re spending those fertilizer dollars as wisely as we can.”

The workshop will be at the southeast research farm by Crawfordsville on Thursday (2/27) from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. There is a $40 registration fee for materials and lunch. The farm is located at 3115 Louisa-Washington Road. To pre-register contact the Washington County Extension Office or email rka8@iastate.edu. Enrollment is limited to the first 30 registrants.