MLSN

Joe Gulotti had me as a guest on his The Talking Greenkeeper show this week. We talked about elephant footprints, the MLSN soil nutrient guidelines, measuring clipping volume, my book A Short Grammar of Greenkeeping, the temperature-based turfgrass growth potential, this year’s challenging weather, whether one needs to core and topdress putting green turf, where a #TurfFights episode might be staged, and much more.

This inquiry came by email under the heading of “MLSN for leaf tissue.” Dear Micah, hope you are fine, it has been a while since we talked last. I must say that I have seen quite a lot of analyses of turf soil with good characteristics and fertilizer levels close to your MLSN.

Grant Saunders asked a series of questions about the quantity of nutrients required in the soil, using calcium as an example. One can see that full discussion here. When he asked this question, I thought the clearest way to answer it would be with a blog post.

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.

This is a friendly reminder that the information here can be obtained automatically by RSS or email every time there is an update, and then can be read or deleted at one’s leisure.

This is an excellent question: “I attended your presentation at the [omitted] conference and had a question regarding MLSN. In the equation a + b - c = Q it’s the “a” part of the equation I am having trouble with figuring out how to arrive at that number.

I thought it might be useful to summarize the key details of MLSN in a cheat sheet. For people using MLSN, or wanting to use it, this 2 page cheat sheet is intended to be a handy reference.

This isn’t just a story about the fertilizer choices or the costs. There is a lot more to it, and I encourage you to read the entire post at Gulotti’s The Walking Greenkeeper blog.

This inquiry came to my inbox: “I’ve been asked to give a seminar on MLSN guidelines for the [ ]. I intend to keep the explanation fairly simple. Are there any frequently asked questions that you have encountered that I could use in my presentations to help me make sure I’m explaining it clear enough … On a side note…I have been teaching this method of soil fertility interpretations for two years to my [ ] turf students and I can’t quite understand the resistance I get from superintendents….

I was writing an article yesterday about MLSN and reading some articles about soil testing and turfgrass nutrition. I came across this gem from Turner & Waddington (1978). “Unfortunately, turfgrass recommendations appear to be based on research done with other crops, such as forages, results from turfgrass fertility studies not designed to relate to soil testing, and the best judgement of the agronomist making the recommendations.