Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

9:00 – 9:05 am Welcome, Deanna Osmond

Deanna welcomed all to the first NRSP-11 annual meeting and everyone introduced themselves.

9:05 – 9:35 The Seeds of NRSP-11, John Spargo

John gave a brief overview of Paul Fixen’s efforts through the North Central soil test regional group to harmonize nutrient recommendations. Brad Joern compared recommendations and provided an overview at a number of meetings. In 2018, a meeting of SERA-6, where large differences in southern soil test recommendations were presented, led to a call to action to harmonize soil test recommendations.  Fortunately, faculty from the northeast who had been discussing problems associated with different recommendations due to crossing state boundaries were at the SERA6 meeting and helped set the project activities that became known as the Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool (FRST) project. NRSP11 encompasses FRST.

9:35– 10:00 National Database and Archived Data Review and Summary by Regions, Crops, and Nutrients, Nathan Slaton

Nathan summarized the national database of phosphorus and potassium data among regions, crops, and time (since 2003 and before 2003) highlighting the need for additional data from the northeast and western regions and for crops other than corn and soybean which comprises 82-85% of the nearly 2600 trials in the database. He emphasized the need for collaborators to continue contributing data and the importance of the NRCS-CIG-funded projects. Some crop data is either more than 20 years old (e.g., cotton), sparse (e.g., alfalfa, potato, forages), or non-existent (e.g,. peanut). He also showed the diversity of soil test level numbers (0-6 depending on state) and terms (14 different terms) used by land grant institutions’ recommendations, with some terms interpreted differently regarding fertilizer recommendations.

 10:00– 10:20  P & K Minimum Dataset and Template Use Discussion, Deanna Osmond Moderate

Deanna gave an overview of the survey around the minimum dataset. Approximately 40% of the individuals who did soil fertility trials for FRST participated in the survey.  For the most part, the soil parameters are what the researchers normally collect. They provided all of the required information and some of the recommended data. On average, using the minimum dataset costs more for the trial, probably due to the cost of determining carbon or OM.  Finally, 50% of the respondents will use the minimum dataset excel spreadsheet, 20% will not, and 30% may use it.  We will add this presentation to soiltestfrst.org.

10:20 – 10:30 Break

10:30 – 11:00 Sulfur Minimum Dataset Update & Discussion, Matt Yost

Matt provided an overview of the sulfur (S) minimum dataset activity.  The committee has been formed and began meeting.  The committee decided to put together a sulfur database even though it is not clear that soil testing for S is useful. Matt has found 505 trials to add to the database, which will consist of the minimum dataset plus a few more parameters such as texture, S source, etc.

11:00 – 11:40 Committee Updates

Soil Depth Report, Steve Culman, No report given – no additional progress since last report given in FRST Collaborator meeting

Calibration Committee Report, Luke Gatiboni, Luke presented a short PowerPoint outlining several calibration options using 4 datasets (Olsen P, Mehlich-1 K, Mehlich-3 K, and Bray-1 P) to evaluate 4 methods of placing site-years data into bins defined by the CSTV and a stepwise multiple regression method. This preliminary work needed to be done before a committee meeting was established.  A survey will be sent to the calibration committee to establish the first committee meeting.

Lime Committee Reports, John Jones/Bob Miller/Amy Shober, Bob Miller is currently collecting soil samples for the lime incubation trials with a target of 120 total soils.  The lime calibration committee chaired by Amy Shober has met once.  Amy will send out a survey to get some direction on lime incubation methods [Ca(OH)₂ vs reagent grade CaCO₃], number of lime rates, different lime rates for different soil textures, etc.) before the next meeting which will focus on developing incubation protocols.  John Jones reported that a draft of the lime survey is prepared but needs additional review.

Regional CIG Reports, Huijie Gan, Jim Wang, Matt Yost, & Daniel Kaiser, North Central and West have not heard about funding of their CIG proposals.  Research from the  Northeast and South projects funded in 2023 is underway.

11:40– 12:00   Business Meeting, Leadership/Officer appointments and Misc. NRSP Business, Slaton (Administrative Advisor) & Osmond (NRSP11 Project Lead)

There was no Old Business. The business meeting focused on how leadership for NRSP11 would be structured.  Deanna Osmond is listed as the Technical Leadership/Editor and she is retiring June 30, 2024.  The group discussed having a past chair, chair, and chair-elect to ensure continuity of leadership across time, and the NRSP11 chairs would interact with the FRST executive committee in planning NRSP activities including the annual meeting. Two models were discussed: 1) rotating the leadership alphabetically through the states or 2) nomination of leadership.  The NRSP-11 membership agreed unanimously that leadership should be nominated. Luke Gatiboni was nominated as chair, but nominations were left open to allow others to be nominated.  Also, we need to nominate an in-coming chair. A communication will be sent out via email soliciting other nominations. [Virtual elections were held - Luke Gatiboni (NCSU) will serve as incoming chair, and Rasel Parvej (LSU AgCenter) will serve as vice-chair, and Deanna Osmond (NCSU) will serve as past chair.]

The annual meeting format was discussed. The annual meeting will either be held virtually or planned to coincide with a regional soil test multistate group meeting or another meeting where members will be present.

The scheduled monthly Zoom meetings will continue to serve as interim meetings for FRST and NRSP11. Attendees were all encouraged to visit the NIMSS website and enroll as official members. Instructions for joining are always included in the FRST monthly collaborator meeting notes which are emailed to 100+ people each month.

Accomplishments

Members of NRSP11 were active in promoting the FRST decision aid, performing webinars and presenting at stakeholder meetings to educate clients on soil fertility and soil testing, and provide updates on other project activities at local, state, national, & international meetings and social media. A total of 23 presentations have been made since FRST was named as NRSP11 (list below + 8 symposium presentations listed above in 2d)

• 1. Osmond, D. (2023). Harmonizing Soil Test Recommendations: The Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool. CCA Training, AL., December 12, 2023. Auburn, AL. https://alabamacrop.net/ 
  2. Spargo, J.T. (2024). Modernizing Fertilizer Recommendations: The Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool (FRST) Project. Pennsylvania Agronomic Education Course, 18-19 January 2024 at the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Boalsburg, PA. https://agsci.psu.edu/paes/2024-paes-conference
  3. Slaton, N.A., Parvej, R., and Reed, V. (2024). Understanding your Soil Test Recommendations. 27th Annual National Conservation Systems Cotton and Rice Conference. Embassy Suites at Jonesboro, AR. 30 January 2024. https://www.flipsnack.com/mafgnet/nctd-conference-book-2024/full-view.html
  4. Slaton, N., D. Kaiser, D. Osmond, J. Spargo, and M. Yost. (2024). Minimum Dataset Development: Experiences from FRST. FFAR Efficient Fertilizer Consortium Convening Event, January 22-23, 2024. Washington, DC.
  5. Osmond, D., Slaton, N., Spargo, J., Yost, M., Kaiser, S., Kleinman, P., & Buol, G. (2024, February 21). The Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool (FRST) Overview: A Living Project [Oral Presentation]. Mid-Atlantic Soil Testing and Plant Analysis Working Meeting. Raleigh, NC
  6. Popp, M. (2024, March 5). Economics of K Fertilizer Rate Recommendations [Oral Presentation]. Agricultural Testing Laboratory Association (ALTA) Webinar. https://alta.ag/alta-webinars
  7. Parvej, R. (2024, March 26). Correlation and Calibration of Soil-Test Phosphorus and Potassium from Different Soil Depths with Soybean Yield [Oral Presentation]. Agricultural Testing Laboratory Association (ALTA) Webinar. https://alta.ag/alta-webinars  
  8. Osmond, D., Slaton, N., Spargo, J., Yost, M., Kaiser, D., & Buol, G. (2024, April 29-30). The Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool (FRST): A National Soil Test Initiative [Oral Presentation]. Soil Science Society North Carolina Annual Meeting, Raliegh, NC.
  9. Osmond, D., Slaton, N., Spargo, J., Yost, M., Kaiser, D., Kleinman, P., & Buol, G. (2024, May 19-21). United States (U.S.) Efforts to Align Soil Test Phosphorus and Potassium Recommendations: The Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool (FRST) [Oral Presentation]. International Union of Soil Science Centennial Meeting. Florence, Italy.
  10. Spargo, J.T. (2024, May 28). Current Status of US Soil Test Phosphorus and Potassium Recommendations and Analytical Methods [Oral Presentation]. Agricultural Testing Laboratory Association (ALTA) Webinar https://alta.ag/alta-webinars
  11. Slaton, N.A., Buol, G., Osmond, D., Spargo, J.T., Yost, M., & Kaiser, D., (2024, May 22). Soil Test Correlation Fundamentals and using the FRST Decision Aid. USDA-NRCS Water Quality Wednesdays Webinar
  12. Gatiboni, L. (2024, June 25) Drawdown of soil phosphorus by crop removal: A meta-analysis of fields with halted fertilization [Oral Presentation]. Agricultural Testing Laboratory Association (ALTA) Webinar https://alta.ag/alta-webinars
  13. Slaton, N.A., Osmond, D, Spargo, J.T., Yost, M., Kaiser, D., Buol, G., Ahmad, U., & Gatiboni, L. (2024, July 21-24). Modernizing Fertilizer Recommendations: The Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool (FRST) Project [Poster]. Soil and Water Conservation Society Meeting. Myrtle Beach, SC.
  14. Slaton, N.A. (2024) Food, Farms & Forests Podcast by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-fertilizer-decision-tool-could-save-farmers-money/id1597122912?i=1000655435532
  15. Kellums, K. (Host) & Slaton, N.A. (2024, 28 June 2024) UA scientist helps develop web-based soil database for farmers, scientists. Ozarks at Large Podcast. https://www.kuaf.com/show/ozarks-at-large
• In 2023, the NRSP11 Project received funding from NRCS totaling nearly $1.5 million for an umbrella project ($630,861) led by scientists at the University of Arkansas (Slaton) and NC State University (Gatiboni, Buol, and Osmond) and two regional projects involving multiple states in the Northeast and South regions lead by Dr. Jim Wang (LSU AgCenter, $437,996) and Haiying Tao (Univ Connecticut, $553,413) to conduct soil-test correlation and calibration field trials to populate the FRST national database with current data. Two additional CIG proposals associated with the umbrella proposal were submitted by NRSP11 participants from the North Central (Dan Kaiser, Univ Minnesota) and Western (Matt Yost, Utah State Univ.) Regions for 2024 funding consideration. https://cig.sc.egov.usda.gov/cig-fiscal-year-2022-awards.  This addresses Objectives 5 and 8 in Outline.
• The primary accomplishment of the NRSP11 was launching the decision support aid (https://frst.scinet.usda.gov/tool) in early April 2024. The tool interacts with a database containing 2500+ soil-test correlation field trials investigating crop yield response to phosphorus or potassium fertilization. The tool models user-selected data to determine a critical soil test value above which a significant and positive yield response to fertilization is no longer expected. A press release was prepared, coordinated among participating institutions, and launched on 8 April 2024 along with social media. See Objective 8 in Project Outline.
• The committee for developing the model to fit soil-test correlation data completed its objectives by applying a quadratic plateau model to soil-test correlation data and published the paper (see publications). See Objective 7 in Project Outline.
• A survey to better understand how stakeholders use soil testing information was developed and launched in early 2024 via social media and launched again in June 2024 to CCAs using services from the American Society of Agronomy. The survey will stay active through the summer and be summarized in the fall/winter of 2024. New Objective added in 2023-24.
• The NRSP11 hosted a well-attended (>100 attendees) symposium at the ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meeting held in St. Louis, MO (29 October – 1 November 2023) with eight (8) presentations from participating faculty at land grant universities and industry as listed below. This is part of our national emphasis on highlighting soil-testing issues that cross state boundaries and encouraging multi-institution collaboration on national issues.
• 1. Osmond, D. Slaton, N.A., Spargo, J., Yost, M., Kaiser, D., Kleinman, P., and Buol, G. (2023). The Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool (FRST) Overview
  2. Spargo, J.T., S.E. Lyons, J.D. Clark, D.L. Osmond, R. Parvej, A.W. Pearce, and N.A. Slaton. (2023). Current Status of US Soil Test Phosphorus and Potassium Recommendations and Analytical Methods.
  3. Culman, S., J. Spargo, D. Osmond, N. Slaton, and P. Kleinman. (2023). How to account for soil stratification when comparing fertilizer recommendations based on different soil depths?
  4. Yost, M. A., Blaylock, A. D., Rogers, C. W., & Tarkalson, D. D. (2023). What’s Happening in the West: Fertilizer Recommendation Trends and Opportunities.
  5. Jones, J. D., Sikora, F. J., & Miller, R. O. (2023). Comparative Survey of U.S. State Liming Recommendation Systems.
  6. Slaton, N. A., Gatiboni, L., Pearce, A., Osmond, D. L., Bolster, C. H., Clark, J., Ruiz Diaz, D. A., Dhillon, J. S., Farmaha, B. S., Kaiser, D. E., Lyons, S. E., Margenot, A. J., Miguez, F., Moore, A. D., Sotomayor, D., Spackman, J. A., Spargo, J. T., & Yost, M. A. (2023). The Journey to Defining the Critical Soil Test Value for FRST.
  7. Buol, G., Lyons, S. E., Osmond, D. L., Slaton, N. A., Spargo, J. T., Kleinman, P. J. A., Yost, M. A., & Kaiser, D. E. (2023). The Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool (FRST) Database and Web-Based Decision Aid.
  8. Lacey, C. and D. Sawyer. (2023). Agricultural Laboratory Testing Association: S Soil Testing Industry Perspective
• Project Staffing includes 2 post-doctoral fellows who were hired in July and August 2023 and another was hired in July 2024 (as a replacement) with a January 2025 start date. The postdocs are instrumental in writing papers, performing statistical analysis, and developing data templates for uploading to the national database.
• Three social media posts to X (Twitter) about the launch of the decision aid were made between February and July 2024 totaling 5,171 impressions, 400 engagements, and 168 expands. At least seven different land grant university communication departments issued a coordinated press release on the launch of the FRST decision aid that was picked up by numerous local, state, and national media outlets.
• Collaboration with individuals in private Industry has been incorporated into FRST which will increase our visibility, provide valued stakeholder input to improve the FRST decision aid, and enhance the use of the decision aid for developing and making soil-test-based fertilizer-P and K recommendations. Collaboration among land grant universities continues to be strong with 8 peer-reviewed journal papers having 47 unique authors and the published national survey dataset including 65 authors. Short-term outcome.
• The FRST project published 7 papers between 2020 and 2023 that are highly visible with Altimetric Attention Scores of “Good” to “High”, and a total of 46 citations (range 1-13). These statistics show the papers are of interest and potentially influence the science of soil test correlation (data from Journal information available online). Likewise, between April 1 and June 30 the FRST webpage was viewed 1,744 times and the decision aid was viewed 1,103 times by 1,586 users. Short-term outcomes
• Future Plans for 2024-2025 include summarizing the data collected from the national survey, finalizing analysis of the soil depth data led by Steve Culman (Washington State Univ.), finalizing analysis of western P and K recommendations led by Matt Yost, publishing a paper on the lime rate survey comparing lime requirement methods and recommendations for six soils among land grant universities (Led by John Jones, Univ. Illinois), initiating a laboratory study from soil collected by Bob Miller using protocols established by the Lime Calibration committee (led by Amy Shober), and planning a symposium for the Fall 2025 ASA-CSSA-SSSA meeting that will be held in Salt Lake City, UT. We also intend to add features to The FRST decision aid including the probability of a positive response to fertilization that complements the correlation using relative yield and continuing to recruit industry representatives as participants in NRSP11. Additional output will occur for the current reporting year (Oct 2023-Sept 2024) as FRST members will give at least two webinars for ALTA and a presentation will be given at the August 2024 ALTA Summer meeting.
• Since the establishment of NRSP11 on 1 October 2023, members of the FRST project have collaboratively published one (1) peer-reviewed journal article, two (2) dataset publications, one (1) fact sheet, twenty-three (23) presentations, two (2) podcasts (see 2f), organized one (1) symposium at an international meeting, made >15 scholarly presentations at local to international events, and developed the Decision Support Tool.
  1. Buol, G., Osmond, D., Slaton, N., Spargo, J., Lyons, S., Pearce, A., Uthman, Q., Yost, M., & Kaiser, D. (2024). Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool, V 1.0.0.0. FRST-Tool Page (usda.gov) https://soiltestfrst.org/
• Activities In 2023-2024, committees with representatives from each region were launched to
  1. investigate a lime calibration project (led by Amy Shober, Univ Delaware);
  2. developing a minimum dataset for sulfur (led by Matt Yost, Utah State Univ);
  3. model calibration data to develop data-based P- and K-rate recommendations (led by Luke Gatiboni, North Carolina State Univ.);
  4. refine the decision support tool programming (e.g., programming committee; led by Greg Buol, North Carolina State University);
  5. seek literature and additional data to populate the database, especially for underrepresented states and crops; and
  6. review soil test terms and fertilizer recommendation strategies used by land grant institutions

1. Milestones
   1. The FRST decision aid was launched on 8 April 2024 and is available for public use
   2. The soil test correlation modeling paper was accepted for publication on 4 May 2024

Publications: The NRSP11 Project produced one (1) peer-reviewed paper published in the Soil Science Society of America Journal; one (1) fact sheet published on the FRST website; two (2) datasets, and one (1) user guide for the FRST Decision Support Tool. Note the listed publications are efforts exclusive or directly related to the FRST activities and do not include publications of individual member research projects.

• Filippi, D., Gatiboni, L., Crozier, C., Osmond, D., & Hardy, D. (2024). Corn response to potassium rates during three cropping years in North Carolina. Ag Data Commons. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/25035980.v1 
• Slaton, N. A., Pearce, A. W., Gatiboni, L., Osmond, D. L., Bolster, C., Clark, J., Dhillon, J., Farmaha, B., Kaiser, Lyons, S., Margenot, A., Miguez, F., Moore, A., Ruiz Diaz, D., Sotomayor, D., Spackman, J., Spargo, J., & Yost, M. (2024). Models and sufficiency interpretation for estimating critical soil test values for the Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool. Soil Science Society of America, XX, https://doi.org/10. 10.1002/saj2.20704
• Slaton, N. A.; Uthman, Q. (2024). Bermudagrass forage response to phosphorus and potassium fertilization. Ag Data Commons Dataset. https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/24978027.v1 
• Slaton, N.A., Pearce, A., Gatiboni, L., & Osmond. (2024) Fact Sheet #6 – Modeling Soil Test Correlation Data. https://soiltestfrst.org/resources/critical-soil-test-value/
• Buol, G., Osmond, D., Slaton, N., Spargo, J., Lyons, S., Pearce, A., Uthman, Q., Yost, M., & Kaiser, D. (2024). Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool, V 1.0. 0.0. https://frst.scinet.usda.gov/manual