OGSA magazine “Green is Beautiful” now available free online

The Fall 2013 issue of “Green is Beautiful” is out and it is now available online free of charge. In the past, the magazine was only available to Ontario Golf Superintendent’s Association members. There is lots of good information there – check it out http://issuu.com/blenheim/docs/gisb_fall2013_28pg.

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Global Soil Survey

I learned about this initiative at the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America (Tri-Societies) meeting in Tampa last week. There is a Division withing the Crop Science Society of America called C05-Turfgrass Science. At the meeting in Tampa there were roughly 200 scientific presentations given by world renown turfgrass scientists over the 3 days of the meeting. The full C05 program can be seen on the Tri-Societies website at https://scisoc.confex.com/crops/2013am/webprogram/start.html

So- what is the Global Soil Survey? It is a citizen style science project and the aim is to come up with “Minimum Levels for Sustainable Nutrition Guidelines for Turf” (MLSN). PACE Turf has partnered with Brookside Labs and they have already taken 17,000 soil samples from healthy turf and pooled the soil test results to come up with the minimum levels of soil nutrients that can produce healthy turf. They want to make these guidelines as robust as possible and they are looking for more golf courses, sportsfields, etc. to participate in this survey. Participants will send in 3 soil samples taken from healthy turf. They will receive an analysis of 21 chemical measurements from the 3 samples. They will also receive recommendations on how to correct nutrient deficiencies or excesses. The report will also calculate a sustainability index for each major nutrient for each of the three samples. This numerical rating will document how close each soil nutrient is to the minimum identified in the MLSN guidelines, and how much lower that level can go before it reaches the minimum threshold. The fee to participate in this project is $250US.

Dr. Larry Stowell (PACE Turf), Dave Smith (DCS Agronomic Services) and Dr. Luke Baker (Brookside Laboratories Inc.) will be speaking about this project at the OGSA Show in Toronto in Jan. http://www.ogsa.ca/SideMenuPage/events/OGCMConferenceandTradeShow2014/PreliminaryConferenceSchedule.aspx

For more information on the Global Soil Survey visit the PACE Turf websites at http://www.paceturf.org/journal/global_soil_survey

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