NRCS Facilitators Meeting

Owned by Elizabeth Seyler
Last updated: Jun 17, 2024
3 min read

06.17.24

Attending: Shannon Mitchell, Heather Darby, Mikah Pinegar, Victoria Ackroyd, and Rick Hitchcock, Elizabeth Seyler, Karl Anderson, John Englert, Lori Metz, 20+others

Agenda:

  1. Why are we here? Heather Darby

  2. What are the tools? Mikah Pinegar, Victoria Ackroyd, and Rick Hitchcock

  3. What is facilitation? What does testing look like? Shannon Mitchell

  4. What’s next? Elizabeth Seyler

    1. “Facilitators” test the tools themselves and guide other people doing the testing. “Respondent” are the users testing the tools.

Karl shows the VegSpec User Expertise questionnaire. He created a map: one PMC and one soil health specialist for each region. 2-4 people per region. He shows the Teams channel.

Lori Metz asked that John introduce VegSpec before we start.

John Englert: old VegSpec stopped in 2010, never took off. Restarted it in 2017 (I think) working with CCCs, Steven and ARS toward VegSpec as a suite of tools. VegSpec will be part of NRCS conservation desktop that all field staff use when working with farmers and other landowners. Now focusing on testing functionality and the data output.

  • VegSpec gaps: 2. plant characteristics--don’t have full set for all 50 states. 2. implementation requirements vary from state to state and need to be included. VegSpec.org.

  • CC tools: getting user feedback after lots of design/devel work

Mikah: develops CC tools and helping with VegSpec

Heather describes why we need NRCS feedback on the CC tools and the value of their input. It’s like a dream come true to have these tools to help farmers adopt cover crop information.

Rick Hitchcock: U of GA. Gives an overview of VegSpec. Soil and weather data. Choose a location, delineate your field. That brings in a lot of preloaded info about your site. Then ID, growth requirements; goals (e.g. cropland, conservation cover, etc.; species that match your goals and are potentially well-suited; seed mixes are suggested as well as costs; one can print the output; then there’s a feedback section on VegSpec.

Karl: if you have more localized info, VegSpec could include it. We could set parameters by state.

Lori Metz: does any of the input data get saved?

  • Rick: Yes, there will be a way to log in and save your data.

Mikah: we’d like input on diff tool designs and behavior. When we compile that, we’ll make them all more similar. We’ll be seeking AB (comparison) testing. End goal is to consolidate all our tools' look and use.

  • He walks through using Species Selector

  • He walks through the Seeding Rate Calculator

Shannon: describes how testing works and why we do it. You’ll see small changes in the tools as we improve them. Build, reflect, improve continuously. Validation: testing proves what does and doesn’t work. Risk mitigation: testing tells us what needs to be resolved. Supports decision making. Helps us understand how tools work in diff conditions, with diff people, in various locations.

Karl: talk to all facilitators at once or by region? Mikah: probably start all together, then by region if we need to. Testers: Producers, other partners, etc.

Shannon: Many perspectives useful.

Eliz: one on one vs async, Facilitators vs Respondents. User testing materials being finalized this week. We’ll send to facilitators next week, then testing starts in July and runs through much of summer. End date TBD.

Karl has posted links to the tools on Teams. He’ll add the 2023 PSA-Game Theory video sessions to Teams for people to watch; Eliz noted second one is a great overview of what testing is and how it works.