When I'm walking in a field with a strip-tiller, we'll invariably talk about visual indicators that reflect benefits of the practice — increased earthworm populations, mellower soils and better soil texture.

St. Olaf College's crop land is a working farm for Dave Legvold, who leases the ground, and is a living laboratory for students. The students learn from Legvold, and he learns from them.

So what do you do when you have a field that underperforms and its soil is in dire need of being rejuvenated? While no-till might be a good start, reduced tillage is only part of the plan for restoring the productivity of farmland. Doug Miller, agronomist and vice president of Midwest Bio-Tech shares a look into a real-life, soil-reclamation example that will help you understand how improved soil biological activity impacts the productivity of farmland. [To view any of our webinar replays, you must be logged in with a free user account.]

Soil sampling is an increasingly embraced practice to help farmers understand what's taking place beneath the soil surface.

When salts are present at normal levels, they help to stabilize soil particles, buffer soil pH and serve as a source of soil nutrients, according to South Dakota State University Extension.

More and more African farmers have turned to conservation tillage to maintain the health of the soil in their fields.

UC Davis and University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers have described part of the network of genetic controls that allows a plant to grow for the first time.

With an increasing global population, a shrinking agricultural land base, climate change and extreme weather events, the nations of the world are focusing their collective attention to the primary resource essential to food production - the soil.