micronutrients

Once upon a time, I presented the manganese availability index (MnAI) on soil reports. I also put a line at 45. When the MnAI was less than 45, I recommended Mn application.

I wrote an update about normal manganese (Mn) levels in soil and in turfgrass leaves. Mark Smith posted about Mn with some extraordinarily verdant grass and attributed the color to Mn.

There’s an interesting blog post by Jim Orson titled “Read this before leaf tissue testing for micronutrients.” The entire post is worth reading. It describes his conclusions after studying the result of 15 trials with winter wheat.

“Do the MLSN guidelines use 17 essential nutrients? I’ve found a couple good articles,” my friend wrote, “but I couldn’t really find a number on the MLSN website.” “That’s an interesting question,” I replied, “and I may answer it on my blog.

This is nothing new. We’ve been discussing this for a long time. But these charts are new. I wanted to explain why I don’t worry about micronutrients. I’m going to explain this in words first, and show the charts at the very end.