Managing soil organic matter (SOM) is a primary concern for turfgrass managers. Unfortunately, changes in SOM through cultivation happen over the course of months and years. This makes it difficult for managers to know if they are on the right track to achieve their SOM goals.
GreenKeeper has received generous support from DryJect to help bring the McCoy-Broadbelt Soil Organic Matter model to GreenKeeper App. This new feature is based on years of SOM modeling research by Dr. Ed McCoy, Associate Professor of Soil Physics at Ohio State, and Mr. Jeff Broadbelt, VP of Operations for DryJect Inc. This highly advanced model asks users to enter their SOM levels at various depths in their root zone, and estimates of SOM accumulation, decay, and dilution to predict where SOM levels are trending over the next three years.
Users can enter a variety of cultivation event types including topdressing, sand-injection, solid and hollow-tine aeration, and deep verticutting with custom amendment mixes (wet & dry sand, amended sand, compost, etc.). The model graph then shows how those cultivation and topdressing events change the trajectory of SOM accumulation at the various soil depths. Users can enter either the volume of amendment they plan to apply as a depth or a total weight (tons per area). This new Cultivation Tracker is sure to provide turfgrass managers with increased confidence when designing their SOM management programs.
A tutorial of how to use the new Cultivation Tracker in GreenKeeper can be found on the Cultivation Page and at our YouTube Channel located here.
This is the first of several new Predictive Agronomic Models coming to GreenKeeper over the next year. With time, GreenKeeper will refine the SOM predictions at your course through approaches in machine-learning. The software will automatically monitor changes in the SOM levels over several years and refine the individual model parameters to best fit your local conditions. Similar approaches will be applied to growth predictions, PGR performance & N fertilizer recommendations, and pest outbreak predictions. Ultimately, the more data you add GreenKeeper now (i.e. clipping volume, soil SOM levels, green speed, application records), the more advanced models will be available to you in the future.
We are excited to launch the Cultivation Tracker and thank DryJect for helping to bring it to GreenKeeper App. We are also looking forward to your feedback as you explore this new model. Try it out today and develop a winning cultivation strategy for 2021 and beyond.
