Chart of the week: soil organic matter and amino sugar nitrogen

Sometimes things don't need to be made complicated. Soil organic matter is a complex topic, but the amount of nitrogen (N) in the organic matter than will be plant-available can be expressed as a linear function of the soil organic matter percentage.

See this chart, Amino sugar nitrogen and soil organic matter in various putting green soils, for more details.

The take-home message is this. When a soil has more soil organic matter, the grass will require less supplemental fertilizer…