Winter Webinars

Winter webinars are 60-minute, online presentations that are FREE for everyone. We encourage attendees to come with questions for the chat box.

Webinars are held on Tuesdays, from noon to 1 p.m. Central Time from January to April.

Winter webinars have concluded for 2025. Keep scrolling to view the recordings.

2026 Winter Webinars

Beavers as Land Stewards: A Practical Look at Coexistence in Iowa

Jan. 20, 2026

John Schroeder, a Colorado State University graduate, has a diverse forestry career across multiple states. For eight years he has managed New Melleray Abbey’s forests in Iowa, restoring oak woods, creeks and prairies while integrating these efforts with row crop farming.

New Melleray Abbey includes 3,000 acres, in Peosta, Iowa. About half the property is in cropland; the rest is in habitat restoration. Forester John Schroeder manages the abbey’s forest, prairie, oak savanna and wetlands. As part of their restoration efforts, the abbey is striving to restore beavers to the landscape. Join John to learn how beavers can benefit working farms. He’ll share methods that can help you create a biologically diverse habitat that supports beavers and other wildlife. You’ll also learn how beavers can be successfully integrated into modern row crop farming.

Don’t Call It a Comeback: Small Grains Back in Rotation

Jan. 27, 2026

Martin Larsen is a fifth-generation farmer using no-till and cover cropping practices to grow conventional corn, soybeans, oats and rye near Byron, Minnesota. Martin also works for the Olmsted County Soil and Water Conservation District. He has done research on cover crops and nitrate reduction in local waterways, and serves as president of the Minnesota Caving Club.

With a small-grains resurgence happening in Minnesota, it’s valuable to learn from farmers about how small-grains crops fit into their operations. Learn from Byron, Minnesota, farmer Martin Larsen about his experiences growing these grains, the value they bring and why crops like oats and rye have become a staple in his rotations.

Agroforestry at Red Fern Farms

Feb. 3, 2026

Kathy Dice and Tom Wahl launched Red Fern Farm near Wapello, Iowa, in 1986 and now grow over 75 species of common and not-so-common fruits and nuts. They are dedicated to educating consumers and growers, researching fruit and nut trees and shrubs, and practicing perennial polyculture at their farm. In addition to their forest-farm products, available through you-pick, they raise hair sheep, which they rotate throughout their farm. Tom and Kathy are lifetime members of PFI and recipients of PFI’s 2015 Sustainable Agriculture Achievement Award.

Join Tom Wahl and Kathy Dice for this virtual tour of their farm, Red Fern Farm, near Wapello, Iowa. Through photos and discussion, you’ll get to explore all their farm has to offer and how they manage over 75 species of fruits and nuts. By the end, you’ll have a better understanding of Red Fern Farms’ blend of practical farming and agroforestry, including some crop-specific practices and sustainability practices.

Three Optimizations To Grow Sales – and Your Farm

Feb. 10, 2026

Katherine Dove Schon is a native Iowan whose eyes opened to the possibilities of prioritizing local food when she moved to Europe 10 years ago. She quickly became curious and passionate about where her own food came from. Now, after years of designing websites for small businesses, she’s turning her focus to helping locally and sustainably focused farms and agricultural businesses transform their website visitors into buyers, so that sustainable agriculture can also be a sustainable business model.

Think your farm website is just an online brochure? Think again. Your website should be a well-oiled machine that brings in sales, answers questions and guides new customers, 24/7. In this webinar, you’ll learn three key ways to make that happen. Come uncover how to help customers actually buy from you instead of getting lost or giving up. Perfect for the farmer who wants their website to work as hard as they do.

No-Till Leafy Green Production at Humble Hands Harvest

Feb. 17, 2026

Hannah Breckbill has been farming since 2009 and started Humble Hands Harvest in Decorah, Iowa, in 2013. She is also cofounder of the Queer Farmer Network, a land access navigator with PFI and board president of the Farmer’s Land Investment Cooperative.

Hannah Breckbill has been farming at Humble Hands Harvest in Decorah, Iowa, since 2013. In this webinar, she’ll cover the basics of their no-till, low-gadgetry leafy greens production systems. Join us to learn how Humble Hands manages summer successions, high tunnels over winter, greens washing and more!

Using On-Farm Research Trials To Lower Nitrogen Rates

Feb. 24, 2026

Kevin Prevo farms near Bloomfield, Iowa, alongside his parents, two brothers and their families. Kevin and his brothers are the fifth generation to farm on the family’s century farm. Together, they raise corn, soybeans, rye, straw and livestock on 1,400 acres. Since 2014, they’ve been integrating cover crops have been 100% no-till.

Kevin Prevo is a participant in Practical Farmers of Iowa’s on-farm research program. For the past three years, he has taken part in a trial seeking to answer the question: Can we reduce nitrogen rates to corn and improve return on investment? Kevin will discuss why he chose to participate in the trial and how he has been able to reduce his nitrogen rates.

Rooted in Conservation: A Generational Farm Working for Soil, Water and Wildlife

March 3, 2026

Nicole Vernon is a fifth-generation farmer, wife and mother of three who farms at Vernon View Farms near Anamosa, Iowa. She also farms with her parents at Moncks Homegrown, near Monticello, Iowa, where she helps to manage and market the family’s beef, pork and goat products. Nicole champions conservation, regenerative practices and healthy soils while promoting transparency and connecting consumers with the farmers who raise their food.

Nicole Vernon grew up on Monck Farms, a 700-acre corn and soybean farm near Monticello, Iowa, where her parents emphasized sustainable farming and conservation practices. While still at Iowa State University, she bought her own 100-acre farm, raising corn, soybeans and cattle. She uses no-till and cover crops, and has restored prairie, oak savanna and wetlands through the Conservation Stewardship Program. She has also partnered with ISU on water quality projects using corn cobs. Named the 2025 Iowa Conservation Woman of the Year, she shows how conservation and row-cropping can thrive together.

Sharing on Sheep Health

March 10, 2026

Dr. Cindy Wolf taught at the University of Minnesota’s College of Veterinary Medicine for 35 years. There, she cultivated her knowledge on small ruminants and has become well known nationally as a strong advocate in the sheep and goat community. Cindy, along with her husband Kelley O’Neill, has raised sheep in southeast Minnesota since 1994.

Sheep are an important enterprise on many farms. Keeping them healthy is crucial to good production and financial well-being. Yet understanding the complex biological systems that contribute to their overall health can sometimes feel overwhelming. Join Cindy for some approachable insights. She’ll address late-gestation ewe management and the importance of colostrum. You’ll hear why you need to understand and manage gastrointestinal parasites. You’ll also learn about what can cause lame sheep and how to control for the future. Be sure to bring your questions!

Small Edges, Big Gains: One Farms Approach to Cleaner Runoff

March 17, 2026

Jim O’Connell raises corn and soybeans, which he plants green, and operates a 30-head cow-calf operation near Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He and his family have been planting cereal rye as a cover crop for 16 years. All their crop acres are seeded with a Montag harvest seeder attached to their combine, which lets them plant cover crops while they harvest their cash crop. The farm also has several edge-of-field practices to improve water quality, including bioreactors, a saturated buffer and a wetland.

Evan Brehm is a conservation agronomist with the Iowa Soybean Association in east-central Iowa who helps farmers adopt in-field and edge-of-field practices. Through the Middle Cedar Partnership Project, and as part of ISA’s Research Center for Farm Innovation team, he links upstream conservation to Cedar Rapids water quality and promotes on-farm research.

Evan Brehm is a conservation agronomist with the Iowa Soybean Association in the Middle Cedar Watershed, classified as a high-priority watershed. Jim O’Connell, a farmer in Linn County specializing in corn and beans, has been working with Evan to implement practices that improve water quality. They installed a bioreactor, a saturated buffer and a wetland on Jim’s farm. These edge-of-field practices can reduce the amount of nitrates leaving a farm and entering the watershed. Join Evan and Jim as they discuss methods that can be integrated on any size operation to improve water quality.

Cut-Flower Farming With Two Sisters Flower Farm

March 24, 2026

Britney Zondlak is the founder and co-owner of Two Sisters Flower Farm LLC in Byron Center, Michigan. The business, which she runs with her sister, Emily, started with just a few rows of zinnias, sunflowers and basil. Today, the farm grows more than 40 different varieties of flowers. Before getting into flowers, Britney worked for nearly two decades at Star-Summit Farm, a dairy operation located across the road from her flower stand. While she still helps out on the dairy from time to time, flower farming has blossomed into a full-time job.

Growing flowers for the cut-flower market isn’t all roses. From choosing varieties and timing crops to managing pests and diseases, dealing with weather and marketing to customers, cut-flower farmers need to navigate an array of decisions. In this webinar, join Britney Zondlak, founder and co-owner of Two Sisters Flower Farm, to hear how she grows an abundance of flowers full-time on a quarter-acre plot while running a successful self-serve farm stand.

Grazing Resilience With Warm-Season Perennials

March 31, 2026

Gene Schriefer and his wife, Ruth, operate a grass-finished beef operation in southwest Wisconsin and raise a flock of grazing sheep. Gene served as the state executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency in Wisconsin. He also previously worked as a grazing specialist and extension agricultural educator for University of Wisconsin-Madison. Gene’s interests and concerns are rural poverty, depopulation in agriculturally dependent regions, loss of community, environmental degradation and loss of resilience in the face of climate change.

As drought, floods and other extreme weather continues to be more common, it’s important that your farm has the resilience to adapt. Reprising his hit session from PFI’s 2025 Annual Conference, Gene will share the experiments he has done on his own farm to incorporate warm-season native perennials. He’ll explain the benefits he’s seen from his stand of pure big bluestem, as well as the difficulties it poses. He’ll also discuss how these plants fit into the larger context of his farm.

Lessons Learned: Maximizing Crop Rotations With Cover Crops

April 7, 2026

Jamie Scott farms with his parents near Pierceton, Indiana, on acres that have been no-till since the 1980s. Twenty years ago, they started including cover crops on their 1,500-acre corn, soybean, wheat and hay operation. Jamie also has a cover cropping application company that works on over 100,000 acres in Indiana and Michigan. He has been named a Hoosier Resilience Hero by Indiana University’s Environmental Resilience Institute, and been recognized for conservation efforts by Indiana Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts and the American Soybean Association.

Jamie Scott, a Pierceton, Indiana, farmer has been planting cover crops on his acres for over 20 years. He has done extensive research and trials on his acres to see what works best – and he says cover crops are the one practice he would never give up on his farm. Jamie maintains covers are the way to boost long-term profits while achieving soil health goals. During this webinar, he will discuss key cover cropping strategies that he has identified over the years.

Management and Selection for Minimizing Parasite Effects in Small Ruminants

April 14, 2026

Cherrie Nolden has raised sheep for 25 years and goats for 18 years near Dodgeville, Wisconsin. She selects for animals that don’t need deworming, hoof trimming, assistance birthing or raising young, among other attributes. Cherrie has academic credentials in wildlife ecology, agroecology and animal and dairy sciences. She also has expertise in topics ranging from immunology and parasites to pasture management and reproduction.

Parasites are a significant challenge to raising small ruminants with regenerative practices in the Upper Midwest. While you can’t eliminate parasites from the landscape, you can minimize their impacts by taking an integrated approach that recognizes the role of both management and genetics. The goal of this approach is to develop landscape-adapted goats and sheep while reducing labor, infrastructure and inputs. In this webinar, Cherrie will discuss her low-management system for raising sheep and goats and share the strategies she’s found valuable and effective.

Farmland Transition Planning

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Martha McFarland is the farmland viability coordinator at PFI. In this role, she supports members through farm transition coaching and mediation. She also helps beginning farmers seeking land and fosters tenant-landowner connections. Martha has a master’s degree in education from Colorado State University.

What was your farm like 30 years ago? What do you want your farm to be like 30 years from now? In this webinar for retiring farmers and landowners, we’ll talk about how setting goals can help a farm transition run smoothly. We’ll talk though several models of farm transition, and you’ll have time to reflect on what you want your farm transition to look like. You’ll also have a chance to think about what your next steps should be based on your retirement goals. Finally, we’ll discuss strategies for communicating your goals to others.

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