Soil Health was the focus of a recent workshop in Swift Current featuring Nicole Masters.

She says it's important to focus on soil health as it is the foundation for everything you grow whether you are in crop production or raising livestock.

Masters is an Agro-Ecologist with Integrity Soils in New Zealand.

"If we don't have healthy soil, then that costing ranchers across the board or cropping operations, because then you're going to have to replace what that soil health is providing," she said. "It's either inputs, lack of water infiltration or effectiveness of the nutrients."  

Masters says putting milk on the land can help to improve the soil condition.

"We're putting 40 litres of milk per hector onto fields that have a lot of barley grass, kochia and nettles," Masters added. "It will actually shift the dynamic and the health of those particular weeds and mop up the nitrates and now we've got pasture that we can graze."     

She says when evaluating your soils it’s important to get a soil, microbial and forage test done so you know what you have nutrients you have to work with and just how functional they are.