Delmarva Soil convention highlights sustainable farming

SALISBURY, Md. – The Delmarva Soil convention kicked off Tuesday, at the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center.

The event focused on giving farmers better tools to both improve and measure soil health. It also highlighted the impacts that those practices can have on crops, groundwater, and the health of surrounding communities.

Farmers say they are learning how to quickly diagnose soil health and learn how to respond. They added that leaving the soil healthy for generations to come is the most important job of a farmer.

“I need to get out of my technology, put my boots on the ground and go and look at my crop, go and look at my soil, be able to take samples, be able to send them off to a lab, to be able to understand the science behind what we’re doing, quantify those numbers and be able to say, all right, we’re going to cut back here,” said local farmer Jay Baxter.

Baxter tells us his farm in Georgetown is always looking for ways to preserve the soil and keep the ground beneath it suitable for growth as a legacy for future generations.