Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Please refer to 2010 meeting minutes at the following URL: www.clemson.edu/agsrvlb/sera6 The 2010 annual meeting was hosted by Mississippi State University. Keith Crouse and Larry Oldham welcomed the group to Starkville. The meeting began on Sunday evening with state reports being given. Mondays technical sessions represented a wide range of topics including a history of soil testing in the South, soil test summary data and service marketing aspects in Mississippi, comparison of lime buffer methods, nutrient reduction strategies in the Mississippi Basin, and blueberry N sources in North Carolina. On Tuesday, the group had concurrent sessions with one session focused on nutrient management issues while the other focused on laboratory concerns. North Carolina agreed to host the 2011 meeting. The meeting will be held June 19-21, 2011. Tony Provin continues to serve on the North American Proficiency Testing (NAPT) programs board representing SERA6. The Nomination Committee nominated Larry Oldham to serve as secretary for the next two years, so he will begin serving a 6-year term as he works through the rotation of offices. Rao Mylavarapu completed his two-year term as Chair of SERA-IEG-6. Frank Sikora will be Chair for the next two years.

The work-group continues to be a forum for interaction of members concerning soil, plant, waste, and water analysis testing and appropriate recommendations given to agricultural producers and others as a result of such testing. Standardization and cooperative activities are encouraged whenever possible within the region. This strengthens national efforts to effectively and efficiently utilize our lime and fertilizer resources while protecting the environment and improving water quality by providing opportunities, if taken, for combining manpower and physical resources within the region wherever appropriate. Steve Workman, Research Administrative Advisor, was in attendance at this years meeting and commented on how pleased he was to see great activity on the listserve as participants discussed issues in soil testing. Accolades were given to the group for its well designed website and continued efforts to publish relative documents. David Kissel, Extension Administrative Advisor, announced the following two publications had received a number this year. Procedures Used by State Soil Testing Laboratories in the Southern Region of the United States(So. Coop. Ser. Bull. 409, 25 p. Revised) Research-based Soil Testing and Recommendations for Cotton on Coastal Plain Soils (So. Coop. Ser. Bull. 410) Cooperative Research Projects/Bulletins: The group shared concern over lack of soil testing method validation as related to potential recognition by EPA and USDA- NRCS as nutrient management plans are developed. A draft resolution was developed; the resolution calls for validation of regionally accepted and published soil test procedures by the Soil Plant Analysis Council and the two soil testing subcommittees of the Soil Science Society of America. Further discussion would occur via the listserve to finalize this resolution. Frank Sikora gave an update on the progress of developing the Soil Test Procedures for the Southeast Region of the United States manual. Since last years meeting, the subcommittee met three times by phone conference and the proposed manual is well underway but not complete. He revised deadlines for lead authors; all chapters are to be completed by December 1. A draft of the manual can be found at http://www.clemson.edu/agsrvlb/sera6/methods/.

Procedures Used by State Soil Testing Laboratories in the Southern Region of the United States (So. Coop. Ser. Bull. 409, 25 p. Revised) Research-based Soil Testing and Recommendations for Cotton on Coastal Plain Soils (So. Coop. Ser. Bull. 410)