Although there have been repeated calls specifically for soil samples for lawns, it was only MLSN (MLSN = Minimum Level of Sustainable Nutrition) in conjunction with Mehlich 3 that took up this issue. High mass growth of grasses for animal feed in agriculture is the reason on which our current conventional nutrient guidelines are based. It is therefore not very practical to use conventional agricultural soil test calibrations and the results obtained from them as a benchmark for our sports turf grasses.

Lawn grasses include more than 10 common species and hundreds of cultivars grown in a wide variety of soils and climates. MLSN in conjunction with Mehlich therefore took a direct approach to identifying universally applicable guidelines by examining a large sample size (16,163 Mehlich 3 soil test results) from performing lawns. A subset (n = 3,683) of these results was modeled, particularly from soils with low nutrient storage capacities, as logarithmic 2-parameter distributions. With these continuous probability distributions, high-performance grasses can be produced representative of all soils.

Lawn grasses include more than 10 common species and hundreds of cultivars grown in a wide variety of soils and climates. MLSN in conjunction with Mehlich therefore took a direct approach to identifying universally applicable guidelines by examining a large sample size (16,163 Mehlich 3 soil test results) from performing lawns. A subset (n = 3,683) of these results was modeled, particularly from soils with low nutrient storage capacities, as logarithmic 2-parameter distributions. With these continuous probability distributions, high-performance grasses can be produced representative of all soils.

Product information Mehlich 3 soil sample Agrolab