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MLSN
Soil tests
We provide soil testing services for clients around the world through Brookside Labs, and have an active research program in the area of turfgrass nutrition, soil and plant analysis, and sampling methods.
Books
My books about greenkeeping, turfgrass science, clipping volume, and MLSN.
MLSN
Minimum levels for sustainable nutrition—MLSN—is a modern method for interpreting soil tests for turfgrass.
The Grammar of Greenkeeping: managing turfgrass growth for optimal playing surfaces
A couple of the science and statistics blogs I follow have recently shared AI-generated audio summaries of research papers. The ones I’ve seen were from Google’s NotebookLM. I hadn’t been using this, with most of my LLM (large language model) use over the past couple years being ChatGPT.
Micah Woods
2024-09-23
5 min read
Better turf conditions with more intensive maintenance
You may be familiar with the grammar of greenkeeping. That’s what I call the approach to turfgrass maintenance that focuses on growth rate. As I wrote in the preface to the book with that title:
Micah Woods
2024-07-03
2 min read
Soil testing on the Cornell Turfgrass Show
Frank Rossi and Carl Schimenti had a discussion on the Cornell Turfgrass Show about soil testing, fertilizer, the Park Grass experiment, weeds, and some good ways to sell fertilizer. Also, that perennially hot topic of silicon.
Micah Woods
2024-05-30
2 min read
The time component of soil test interpretation
Soil nutrient levels are dynamic. They change. In non-saline situations, the nutrient levels go down as the grass grows and uses some quantity of the soil nutrients.1 This is why the SLAN medium ranges seem so high, and why the MLSN method of soil test interpretation is so much more precise when making fertilizer recommendations for turfgrass.
Micah Woods
2024-05-07
3 min read
SUNY Delhi MLSN discussion
One of the things I’ve tried to explain about MLSN is that simply taking a soil test and comparing the result to the MLSN value is not enough. One also needs to consider how much of an element the grass will use.
Micah Woods
2024-04-26
PDF
Testing MLSN
I listened to Joe Gulotti’s Talking Greenkeeper podcast with guest Daniel Palin about an MLSN trial on 9 holes, and a different method on the other 9 holes. You can listen to the show for the full story.
Micah Woods
2024-03-01
1 min read
Nutrient harvest turf math
A correspondent wrote with this inquiry related to estimating the value “a” in the MLSN fertilizer rate equation.1 Specifically, the “a” value is the expected plant use of the element over the time period for which the fertilizer recommendation is being made.
Micah Woods
2024-02-26
3 min read
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