New Posts

The Talking Greenkeeper's holiday extravaganza
Joe Gulotti asked me back to The Talking Greenkeeper studio this week for what he calls an “annual holiday extravaganza.” We had a holiday-worthy talk about MLSN, putting green smoothness, my acting skills, travel, and efficient greenkeeping.
2024-12-20 1 min read
The Talking Greenkeeper's holiday extravaganza
OM246 calculator updated
I’ve updated the OM246 calculator to v2 with two substantial changes. One is an entirely new tab for unit conversions between different ways of expressing sand rates. I like mm. Others use kg/ha or tons/ha.
2024-12-08 1 min read
OM246 calculator updated
MLSN and lawns
I’ve been in a long and intermittent conversation with The Grass Factor team about a guest appearance on their show.1 It’s gone something like they invite me, I can’t due to schedule, then six months later they ask again, and I’ll be off on a long trip again, and I ask them to contact me again some months later.
2024-12-05 2 min read
MLSN and lawns
See all posts

About

Micah Woods established the Asian Turfgrass Center (ATC) in 2006 to develop and provide turfgrass information for the golf and sports turf industry. Through the ATC, he provides turfgrass advisory and soil testing services to golf clubs, sports facilities, and select clients around the world. Since 2009, he has been an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Tennessee. Since 2022, he has been director of the PACE Turf information service.

Micah manages to keep his eyes on the ground, studying the turfgrass species wherever he is in the world. He remains well grounded in the practical aspects of the golf game and his writing has been praised for its accessible style. Author of over two hundred articles in publications such as GOLF Magazine and Soil Science as well as books with intriguing titles like One Bucket at a Time and 芝草科学とグリーンキーピング: マイカの時間 The BOOK, Micah enjoys spending time creating animated charts and graphs of the data he has collected while discovering unexpected statistics.

Interests
  • Turfgrass nutrition
  • Turfgrass selection & performance
  • Efficient greenkeeping
  • Soil nutrient analysis
Education

  • PhD in Horticulture, 2006

    Cornell University

  • BSc in Horticulture, 1998

    Oregon State University

Top posts

How much organic matter is too much?
Project
Reflections on growth rate, nitrogen, and topdressing
The GvX equation
Organic material accumulates more rapidly in putting green soils under these two conditions
The Brede equation
An especially lucid abstract about core aeration
Organic matter reduction by hollow-tines, solid-tines, and sand topdressing
You won't believe this common maintenance practice doesn't reduce organic matter at all
Sand topdressing by exact depth: how to work it out
This one simple trick can transform putting greens from usually good to consistently great
Is carbon "the next frontier in fertilization?"
2 similar approaches to turfgrass nutrition, with 1 notable difference

Frequent topics

Click for list of articles on any of these topics

aeration bentgrass bermudagrass bobble test climate ClipVol data analysis disease Environment fertilizer green speed greenkeeping growth potential irrigation Japan Light MLSN Mowing nitrogen OM246 organic matter Paspalum phosphorus playability podcast potassium research rturf sand science seminar soil soil test stimpmeter temperature Thailand topdress tournament turf info Turf reads Turf tourism video water web/tech Zoysia

ATC Library

Use the article filter to search the library.
M. S. Woods (2021). The Secret MLSN Operations Manual.

Project Source Document

M. S. Woods, L. J. Stowell, W. D. Gelernter (2020). A survey of soil nutrient analyses from turfgrass sites in Asia, Europe, and North America. OSF.

PDF Cite Code Dataset DOI

E. H. Reasor, J. T. Brosnan, M. S. Woods (2020). A new method to measure bermudagrass (Cynodon spp.) golf course putting green ball roll uniformity. Journal of Testing and Evaluation.

Cite DOI

M. S. Woods (2020). Composite soil sampling for turfgrass. ATC Technical Report.

PDF

M. S. Woods (2019). Measuring clipping volume is easier and more useful than I expected. MIGCSA Course Conditions.

PDF Cite

M. S. Woods (2019). The turfgrass genki level. ATC Technical Report.

PDF

M. S. Woods (2018). One Bucket at a Time.

Project Source Document

M. S. Woods (2018). MLSN cheat sheet. ATC Technical Report.

PDF Cite

M. S. Woods, R. Deewatthanawong, S. Chanapan (2017). Nutrient use, water use, and growth of manilagrass, hybrid bermudagrass, and seashore paspalum turfgrass in central Thailand. 2017 ASHS Annual Conference Abstracts.

Cite Video Source Document

M. S. Woods (2017). 芝草科学とグリーンキーピング (マイカの時間 The BOOK).

Source Document

See all publications

Projects

*
All Clipping volume MLSN R Soil testing Videos Writing
Soil tests

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.

OM246

OM246

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

Books

Books

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

Shiny Apps

Shiny Apps

Web applications for R that make calculations or show data.

Grammar of Greenkeeping

Grammar of Greenkeeping

I’ve made some movies with my friends to explain how the grammar of greenkeeping works. You may enjoy watching.

PDF Video
Rturf

Rturf

I’ve been doing some teaching, or demonstrating, how I use R software for data analysis in turf-related matters. See the full list of rturf posts. The initial project is about stimpmeter measurements and ClipVol.

ClipVol

ClipVol

Measuring the growth rate by clipping volume. Really.

Turf Twitter

Turf Twitter

Analyzing the tweets and the accounts of the turf industry on Twitter.

Follow
Global Soil Survey

Global Soil Survey

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

MLSN

MLSN

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

Books

The Secret MLSN Operations Manual
This is a compilation of the best content from the MLSN newsletter. It’s all about this modern method for soil test interpretation for turfgrass—how it works, how MLSN was developed, answers to common questions, and some fun stories about this project.
Project Source Document
The Secret MLSN Operations Manual
One Bucket at a Time
You don’t have to measure the clipping volume. But if you are interested in doing so, I’ve written quite a bit about this topic, and I’ve put the information together here so those who are interested can find it in one place.
Project Source Document
One Bucket at a Time
芝草科学とグリーンキーピング (マイカの時間 The BOOK)
Golf is a sport and is played on grass. The greenkeeper works with the grass to produce the best possible playing surface for golf. But just as each golf course has its own design and setting into the landscape, so also the grass on each golf course is growing in its own soil, in a particular climate, with an innumerable list of differences from any other golf course.
Source Document
芝草科学とグリーンキーピング (マイカの時間 The BOOK)
A Short Grammar of Greenkeeping
These are the fundamental principles of greenkeeping, if one agrees that greenkeeping is all about the growth rate of the grass and modifying that rate to get the desired surface conditions.
PDF Cite
A Short Grammar of Greenkeeping

Contact