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.

2025 Schedule

Jan. 21

Using CRP To Foster Biodiversity on a 160-Acre Iowa Farm

Bill Anderson grew up in northwest Iowa and attended Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa, before attending medical school at the University of Iowa. He went did his medical residency at the University of Arizona before returning to Iowa City, Iowa, for a fellowship in surgical pathology. Bill’s transition into farming came after inheriting a portion of his wife’s family farm; eventually, they purchase the remaining two-thirds of their now 160-acre property. Over the years, Bill and his wife have worked to improve the land, enrolling 100 acres into the Conservation Reserve Program and planting mixed prairie species on highly erodible land. The remaining 60 acres consist of unfarmed slopes, woodlands and ponds, creating a more sustainable and diverse landscape.

Clarissa Bruns is west-central Iowa’s Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever farm bill wildlife biologist. Her position partners with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and is stationed in their offices. Clarissa grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and earned her Master of Science from University of Northern Iowa in 2022, where she researched bumblebee genetics. Her coverage area includes Carroll, Ida, Sac and Crawford counties. As a farm bill biologist, Clarissa has a passion for conservation and prairie restoration that benefits upland birds and other wildlife.

Join Bill Anderson, a farmer in northwest Iowa, and Clarissa Bruns of Pheasants Forever as they share their experiences with the Conservation Reserve Program. You’ll learn about a CRP option called Gaining Ground for Wildlife, which is part of the CRP State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement initiative. Bill has enrolled 100 acres in the program, which aims to support threatened and endangered grassland bird species. Bill and Clarissa will also discuss eligibility requirements, planning, planting and maintaining CRP acres, and you’ll learn how this program can be tailored for your specific farm needs.

Jan. 28

Farmers and Food Hubs: A How-To Guide for Getting Started

Nicole Jonas owns and operates Red Granite Farm near Boone, Iowa, with her husband, Steve Jonas. Their farm, launched in 2007, includes 3 acres of produce, a perennial plant business and on-farm store and 800 laying hens. Nicole and Steve have degrees in horticulture from Iowa State University.

Tommy moved to Iowa in 2017 after growing up on a 2-acre vegetable and egg farm in the mountains of central Virginia. He currently works as a rural organizer and educator with Iowa Farmers Union and serves as a commissioner for the Poweshiek County Soil and Water Conservation District. Tommy also used to co-own Grinnell Farm To Table, a local food market in Grinnell, Iowa, that sources products from 15-20 local farmers. He loves to explore the small towns and back roads of Iowa with his German shepherd, Echo, and goes gravel bike-riding in his free time.

Matt Johnson grows vegetables and produce at Long Walk Farm, which he co-owns with Tiffiny Clifton near Council Bluffs, Iowa. Matt grew up in small-town Nebraska, where he was familiar with agriculture and knew he was interested in farming. He spent years living in the city and working in information technology before a opportunity opened up with a few acres just east of Council Bluffs, Iowa, that was too good to pass up. In the middle of the pandemic in 2020, Matt and Tiffiny bought a small farm and started to bring their dreams to fruition.

Food hubs can help local food farmers expand their markets. But for farmers new to working with food hubs, figuring out the process and finding answers to questions can be barriers to getting started. In this webinar, Nicole Jonas of Red Granite Farm will talk with a food hub manager and a farmer who sells to food hubs. Join the conversation to learn how to get started with food hubs, how food hub operations work and what successful famer-food hub relationships look like.

Feb. 4

How Do Small Grains Grow and Develop? Harnessing This Knowledge To Improve Management

Margaret Smith is a forage agronomist for Albert Lea Seed with previous experience working for ISU Extension and Outreach and the ISU Department of Agronomy. She and her husband, Doug Alert, are also lifetime PFI members who operate Ash Grove Farm, a diversified, certified organic crop and livestock operation near Hampton, Iowa. Margaret and Doug are recipients of PFI’s 2019 Sustainable Agriculture Achievement Award. In 2024, Margaret joined PFI’s board.

Thinking about adding small grains to your rotations? Have you recently started growing small grains but would like to know more? Get oriented with the agronomic essentials. Learn about small grains physiology, growth and development, and learn how to identify growth stages that are key for management interventions.

Feb. 11

How To Sell 300 CSAs in 48 Hours: Cultivating Online Engagement and Converting It to Sales

Corinna Bench co-owns Shared Legacy Farms, a 400-member certified organic CSA farm in northwestern Ohio. Once a clueless farmer’s wife tasked with marketing, she transformed her business by mastering digital marketing. Now, Corinna teaches farmers how to build farm marketing systems step by step through the “My Digital Farmer” podcast and her online membership program, Farm Marketing School.

Steve Strasheim owns and operates Twisted River Farm in Mitchell, Iowa, where he and his team grow salad greens, microgreens, mixed vegetables and flowers that they sell through farmers markets, CSAs and local restaurants. An excellent networker and collaborator, Steve has grown his business by building relationships, innovating and making the most of opportunities in his small town, including by adding a farm store with the support of a Choose Iowa grant.

In late fall 2024, farmer Steve Strasheim watched in awe as all 300 CSA pre-sales from Corinna Bench’s Shared Legacy Farms, of Elmore, Ohio, sold out in about two days. In this webinar, Steve will talk with Corinna about her promotion formula, how the process works and why she thinks it did so well.

Feb. 18

Soil Studies: Exploring Creative Residue Management and Soil Amendments in a Four-Crop Rotation

Norm Lamothe is a sixth-generation farmer from Ontario, Canada. He manages Woodleigh Farms Ltd. a diverse 500-acre farm that includes a four-crop rotation of corn, soybeans, wheat and oats. Norm has a lifelong interest in supporting soil health and biodiversity using soil amendments like biosolids, cover crops and green manures, and compost processed on the farm. In 2024, Woodleigh launched a new division called “Catching Carbon,” which will focus on transforming forest and agriculture biomass to biochar that can be used as a soil amendment.

Over the past 10 years, Norm Lamothe and the team at Woodleigh Farms have made many changes to improve soil health. First, they added wheat to the farm’s corn-soy rotation in 2015. A few years later, they added oats. After a major fire in 2018 took out the hog barns, the farm team began focusing mainly on row crops, adding cover crops and using no-till on most of their acres. These changes have pushed Norm and his team to find creative ways of managing residue, including by grazing sheep and composting the residue. Throughout these efforts, the team has documented results through on-farm research. Tune in to this webinar to hear what the Woodleigh team has found about the impacts of extended rotation, cover crops and organic amendments on soil health.

Feb. 25

Dying To Start Dyeing? Raising, Processing and Marketing Wool

Emily Tzeng lives and farms at Local Color Farm and Fiber, a diverse market farm in Puyallup, Washington, about 50 miles southeast of Seattle. Here, she grows a wide range of fresh market veggies year-round and manages a small flock of Finnsheep for wool and meat. She also produces a variety of natural dyes that she uses to dye the wool, and hosts a number of natural dyeing workshops each season.

Farms can grow more than food; they can also grow fiber. If you have sheep, you have wool! That means you also have an opportunity to tap into renewed interest among farmers and consumers alike in fiber arts and natural textiles, particularly the art and practice of natural dyeing. In this webinar, Emily Tzeng will discuss the value chain for wool, the benefits and potential difficulties of producing natural-dye crops, and ways to market these items. Tune in to learn how small-scale farms can add value to their wool by processing the fibers into roving, yarn and finished goods and by dyeing those products.

March 4

Building Partnerships for Conservation: A Farmer-Tenant Collaboration in Northeast Iowa

Mary Damm owns Prairie Quest Farm, a 120-acre pasture-based farm in the Driftless Region of northeastern Iowa. She oversees the management of the pasture-grassland with twin goals of producing grass-fed beef as well as habitat for nesting grassland birds, such as bobolinks, eastern meadowlarks and sedge Wrens, whose populations are all in steep decline. Mary is a plant ecologist by profession. She received her doctorate in biology from Indiana University Bloomington for research on the endangered tallgrass prairie in Iowa. She compared plant species diversity and soil characteristics as well as micro-spatial patterns of plants in native and reconstructed prairies.

Join Mary Damm, owner of Prairie Quest Farm near McGregor, Iowa, as she discusses her successful partnership with her current tenant farmer, who practices rotational grazing with beef cattle. Since purchasing the farm in 2015, Mary has worked with neighboring farmers to graze cool-season pastures with cattle in a manner that creates habitat for nesting grassland birds, whose populations are in steep decline. Mary will share how open communication, respect and helping one another has aligned her conservation goals with those of her tenant, resulting in mutually beneficial projects for the farm’s future.

March 11

Optimal Nitrogen Fertilizer Rates for Corn

Sotirios Archontoulis is a professor of integrated cropping systems in the Department of Agronomy at Iowa State University. He holds the Pioneer Hi-Bred Agronomy Professorship, and his his research aims to improve the productivity, profitability and environmental sustainability of cropping systems. His research combines field experiments with simulation process-based modeling to understand genotype, management and environmental factors interact. Through this work, his goal is to design future strategies across temporal and spatial scales. Sotirios received his doctorate from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and is a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy.

Nitrogen is essential for corn growth. But applying more than the crop needs can mean wasting money while posing risks to water quality and the environment. In this webinar, ISU professor Sotirios Archontoulis, who specializes in integrated cropping systems, will discuss results of new research on the optimal nitrogen fertilizer rate for corn. He’ll discuss how plant population, hybrids, soil and weather can all affect the optimal rate, and what that can mean for corn and grain yields. Tune in to learn more about nitrogen use efficiency, and how you can optimize rates in your own fields.

March 18

Building and Maintaining Fair Lease Agreements

Rachel Armstrong is the founder and executive director of Farm Commons. In this role, she creates the organization’s innovative approach to farm law education and risk reduction. Rachel teaches continuing legal education classes for the American Bar Association and farm law for the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is also a co-author of “Farmers’ Guide to Business Structures,” published by Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education. She lives in northern Minnesota with her husband and three young children.

Are you a beginning farmer thinking about entering into a lease agreement? Are you currently in a lease agreement that feels hard to navigate? Join Rachel Armstrong, founder and executive director of Farm Commons, as she introduces materials and resources addressing lease power dynamics. She’ll share effective strategies you can use to build strong leasing relationships and offer tips for preventing your lease relationships from going awry.

March 25

The Advantages of Cover Crops

Kristin and Pat Duncanson own and manage Highland Family Farms, along with two of their four children, Gabe and Ben. Together, they represent the fifth and sixth generations to steward the family farm, named for its location in a Scottish settlement in Mapleton, Minnesota. The operation produces corn, soybeans and pork.

Kristin and Pat Duncanson, owners and managers of Highland Family Farms, have a goal of making sure future generations have productive soil to farm. They are working to add cover crops and advance no-till and low-till practices. When they first considered planting covers, they weren’t sure if it was going to work for them.  In this webinar, Kristin and Pat will discuss the challenges and successes they’ve had adding cover crops to their rotation.

April 1

Watering Systems for Graziers

Dave Schmidt and his wife, Meg Schmidt, own Troublesome Creek Cattle Co. near Exira, Iowa. Their goal is to produce high-quality, wholesome meat by ensuring the well-being and long-term health and productivity of their livestock while maintaining the most basic resources: soil, air and water. As experienced graziers, they use management-intensive grazing, bale grazing and stockpile grazing techniques.

Based on his popular session at the 2022 PFI Annual Conference, Dave Schmidt is reprising his talk for a new and broader audience. Access to water can be a barrier to grazing – but installing watering systems can seem daunting. In this webinar, Dave will share his experiences with different types of watering systems. Over the years, he has experimented with a range of fixed and mobile water sources. Tune in to learn from an experienced grazier, learn about your options and gain a clearer view of what might work for your grazing system.

April 8

Getting Going With Grazing

Olivia Pascha grew up on a beef cattle and row crop farm in southeastern Iowa and always knew she wanted to return to the livestock industry after attending ISU. After graduating, she started raising cattle, sheep, goats and a handful of crop acres while working at Premier 1 Supplies. Olivia has an avid interest in year-round grazing and how to rotationally graze and co-graze her three species. Her goals are to improve pasture quality and raise healthy animals.

It can be overwhelming to start rotationally grazing. Olivia Pacha has just reached the end of her “first full-blown year” rotationally grazing cattle, sheep and goats. She’s also a participant in PFI’s grazing cost-share and Savings Incentive Program. In this webinar, Olivia will share what she’s learned, from what to invest more in and buy less of to navigating rental agreements and contract grazing. Come hear some insights, reflections and how-tos from a beginner who’s in the midst of figuring it out.

April 15

Preparación para las Reuniones de Acceso a la Tierra

Joe Klingelhutz trabajó como especialista agrícola a tiempo completo para Sustainable Iowa Land Trust entre 2018 y 2022. Actualmente trabaja a tiempo parcial para SILT, y para PFI como navegante de acceso terrestre. Joe vive en Iowa City, Iowa, donde está involucrado con la agricultura de verduras orgánicas, abejas y plantas perennes. Dirige su propia operación apícola independiente y ha trabajado para varias otras granjas.

Los navegantes de acceso a tierras agrícolas apoyan a los agricultores principiantes que están buscando terrenos. El navegante Joe Klingelhutz te explicará cómo prepararte para el acceso terrestre. Compartirá estrategias para acceder a la tierra, ofrecerá consejos para arrendamientos de tierras y le ayudará a entender cómo el mantenimiento de registros y las finanzas de negocios pueden ayudarle a prepararse para el acceso a la tierra.

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to the organizations, business and agencies who provide funding for PFI’s 2024 winter webinar season:

Cedar Tree Foundation
Ceres Trust
Stranahan Foundation
Walton Family Foundation
NRCS CIG through a subaward with Pheasants Forever
Offices of Partnerships and Public Engagement (OPPE), through a subaward with Center for Rural Affairs.
USDA SARE, through a subaward with Lincoln University, Missouri, under agreement number LNC23-480
U.S. Department of Agriculture and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, through a Conservation Partners Program grant
U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service through grant 21FMPPIA1012-00U.S. Department of Agriculture, under agreement number NR216114XXXXG003

“Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In addition, any reference to specific grants or types of products or services does not constitute or imply an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for those products or services.”

“USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.”

“The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the U.S. Government or the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and its funding sources. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute their endorsement by the U.S. Government, or the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation or its funding sources.”

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