MLSN

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.

My books about greenkeeping, turfgrass science, clipping volume, and MLSN.

Minimum levels for sustainable nutrition—MLSN—is a modern method for interpreting soil tests for turfgrass.

The MLSN guidelines were developed using a database of soil test results from good performing turf. The Mehlich 3 extractant was used to obtain these results.1 That leads to a common question, one that goes something like “I’d like to use MLSN but my soil test was done with a different extractant.

I especially want to recommend this blog post. It lists, and provides links to, the best ways to keep up with what I’m doing. For the MLSN topic, I recommend ATC’s MLSN page which has links to pretty much anything you might want to find about MLSN, from cheat sheets to FAQs to data and good and an explanatory e-book.

Here are direct quotes from books and articles over the past 50 years. Do you notice a trend here? Actually, trend might not be the correct word. I’ll rephrase it like this: do you notice the persistence of an unsolved problem?

These questions came by email. After watching the ATC Office Hours autumn 2022 OM246 review (and other ATC content) I had a few questions. I have researched and studied two specific items but couldn’t find the exact answer to what I was looking for.

I use the turfgrass growth potential (GP) all the time. I make use of the GP for all kinds of things, like predicting sand topdressing amounts, comparing locations, predicting nutrient use, checking overseeding dates, estimating mowing requirements, and many more.

After I wrote this post about the differences in P fertilizer recommendations when using different methods for soil test interpretation, I heard from some readers that it seemed I was taking something simple—MLSN—and making it seem complicated.

On November 2 & 3, I’ll be at the Portuguese Greenkeepers Conference in Porto. You can register for the conference at the APG website. Here are three quick notes. 1. The five exciting topics I’ll be discussing I’m going to lead a series of short seminars at the conference.