Two solutions for the problems of turfgrass fertilizer recommendations

In the autumn of 2017, Stewart Brown wrote to me.

“Dear Sir,

I write on behalf of the European Turfgrass Society for which I am the current President.”

He was inviting me to give a keynote presentation at the 2018 conference in Manchester. Sure, that sounded great, but what would they like me to talk about? I mentioned that I could discuss Turf Around the World, or talk about some of my research projects more specifically. When Stewart wrote back, he requested something more general, but clearly tied in with the MLSN project.

“We would like you to present on fertiliser guidelines—I believe you have expertise in minimum inputs?”

That’s how I came to be speaking to a diverse audience of turfgrass scientists and industry professionals in Manchester last Monday. The slides can be downloaded here. I’ve just recorded a screencast of the slides with my commentary, and you can watch that here or embedded below.

I described the problem of making turfgrass fertiliser recommendations from soil tests, and I gave two solutions. One is the Precision Fertilisation approach from STERF. A second is the MLSN approach.