04.15.15 SW HUB TELECONFERENCE NOTES
SW REGIONAL HUB TEAM TELECONFERENCE
April 15, 2015
Present:
Lisa Holscher, IASWCD / CCSI
Tom Held, Knox Co NRCS
Meg Leader, ISDA
Kevin Allison, Marion Co SWCD
Kenny Eck, Dubois Co Extension
Ashley Hammac, Purdue / CCSI
Laura Fribley, ISDA
Notes by:
Lisa Holscher

Roller Crimper at VUJC
o On loan from Riteway, available for use by others. Would need a bigger trailer to move it – 9ft wide.
o Plan to try terminating both warm and cool season grasses.
o Suggested that they really learn how to use it well before giving demonstrations, really understand
expected results – Don’t want turn people away because of a failed demo. It would be good to use this
year to really learn about the equipment
o Suggested sources of information:
 Purdue Hort Department
 Scott Monroe, Purdue Extension SWPAC – currently working on food safety, but has strong
background in specialty crops
 Michael ODonnel, Delaware Co Extension
 Dan Perkins, Jasper Co SWCD
 Chuck Reinhart, Sullivan Co Farmer –built own crimper
o Good idea to get a handle on what people would be most interested in learning / knowing
o Crimper is GREAT with hort crops, tobacco industry. Gives enhanced quality control, disease control by
preventing soil splash-up

June 25th Reclaimed Minelands Field Day
o Cover Crop Plots have been laid out. Variety of Warm Season and Cool Season mixes are being provided
by Cisco Seeds – Wrong time of year for cool season, but will be good to show the difference in
performance.
o Soil Cores will be pulled, cover crops seeded into them for demonstration on rooting depth / impact
o Brad Joern / Ray Archuleta / Barry Fisher will be speaking

Event Registration Fees
o Discussed whether it mattered if registration fees were different in a series of events. Ex: One speaker
3 days, 3 locations… does it matter if registration fees differ?
o General consensus – no… But need to be aware of geographic region. If too close geographically, then
differing fees would matter.
o Make sure fees are asterisked with that fees cover meals and materials.

CCA / Ag Industry Outreach
o Have to continually try new methods of outreach.
o Good idea to build a system around the farmer: seed dealer, implement dealer, banker, landowner… ALL
would have a PIECE of the soil health message. Hearing similar messages, different pieces of the
message, from multiple sources should have an impact.
 See if can teach implement, co-op guys to present
04.15.15 SW HUB TELECONFERENCE NOTES

Look for extra twist – do not want to deny/lose sales. Ex:
 Implement dealers – drills for cover crops, Gandy / Valmar on VT tools
 Co-ops – cover crop burn down tips and tricks; nozzle selections

Landowners
o Very important to target landowners, especially absentee landowners…. To motivate a farmer, need to
affect their landbase
o Can go to courthouse to get list of landowners – but WHAT do we send them?? How do we get their
attention??
o Marketing – can use model of car sales: billboards, newspapers, radio, TV, driving down the road
(seeing cars on the road). Saturation of the message/sales

INField Advantage
o Shift from OnFarm Network name is complete
o Resource Specialists have packets with videos, logos, pdfs of brochures.
o Looking at June 15th as deadline for field registration
o Might use Winter Meetings as platform to reach non-traditional audience as part of CCSI contractual
obligations

Student Outreach
o Check out teacher recruitment programs at local univeristies
o IVYTech in Lafayette has soils classes – always looking for guest speakers, especially on specialties like
soil health – may hold true for other IVYTech locations
o Boy Scouts have soil and water conservation merit badge – Jr High / High School students. There is a
Merit Badge University at Purdue during the summer.
NEXT Teleconference – May 13th