soil test

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.

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

A project that investigated soil nutrient levels of good-performing turf all over the world.

Measure exact topdressing effect, and requirement, by checking total organic material by depth.

I wrote “Soil Testing and MLSN: smarter goals, better results” for GreenMaster magazine. Read the article in the CGSA’s GreenMaster—Soil Testing and MLSN Here are a couple quotes from the article.

A set of OM246 total organic material samples inadvertently got a grinding and sieving process just like normal soil samples.1 As you probably know, a key distinction of OM246 testing is that soil samples are tested at the lab as is, with no subsampling or screening of the sample.

This email inquiry arrived recently: “Hi Micah, looking at the MLSN guidelines and our recent test results, all our levels are above what’s required. Does this mean, we only need to apply N until levels come down?

This question arrived recently: How do you estimate soil nutrient depletion and provide a recommendation if clippings are being returned? Example: lawns or roughs. That’s a good one. See “How to get a quick estimate of grass nutrient use” for some background information about this—specifically about the a + b - c formulation to find the quantity of a nutrient to apply.

This is about the quantity of nutrients in reserve, the quantity of nutrients in the soil that the grass doesn’t use, when one keeps the soil nutrients at or above the MLSN values.

This article about MLSN was published in Greenkeeper International in 2018. I suppose it’s one many of you have never seen. My title for this was “Making Sense of Turf Nutrition with MLSN”, although when published it was shortened simply to “Turf Nutrition.