Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

BRIEF SUMMARY OF MINUTES OF ANNUAL MEETING: Hosts- Jessica Davis, Director of Soil, Forage, & Water Test Lab and Audrey Gamble, Associate Professor (Soil Fertility/Soil Conservation), Auburn University; Auburn, AL

Link to 2023 Minutes https://soillab.tennessee.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/129/2025/07/2023.pdf

Monday, June 5th - Dinner at Hotel at Auburn
 5:00 PM Check-in: Pick up name tag and programs
 5:10 PM Reception
 5:30 PM Introductions
 6:00 PM Welcome Dinner at The Hotel at Auburn University
 7:00 - 9:00 PM State Reports
 
Tuesday, June 6th - Ag Heritage Park
 7:45 AM Travel to Ag Heritage Park
 8:00 AM Breakfast- Sponsor Leco
 8:45 AM - 15 mins - Sponsor Talk - Ametek (Spectro Analytical) Tom Bloomer
 9:00 AM - 35 mins - Dr. Gerson L. Drescher "Soil Sampling Position on Raised Beds Influences Soil-Test Results and Fertilizer Recommendations"
 9:40 AM - 15 mins - Sponsor Talk- Elementar - Chase Migliore "Excellence in Elements"
 10:00 AM - 30 mins - Dr. Nathan Slaton "Update on FRST"
 10:30 AM - 15 mins - Sponsor Talk - Scott Schroeder FiaLabs
 11:00 AM - 35 mins - Dr. Simerjeet Virk - "Investigating Different Soil Sampling Grid Sizes for Site-Specific Nutrient Management in Georgia"
 11:40 AM - 15 mins - Sponsor Talk - BlueSun Rachael Glenister "Innovations in Rapid Soil, Forage, and Feed Analysis"
 12:00 PM - 1 hour - Lunch - Soilkit Sponsor
 1:00 PM - 30 mins - Dr. Bryan Hopkins - "NAPT Update and Analytical Precision and Accuracy"
 1:30 PM - 15 mins - Sponsor Talk - Texas Scientific Doug Keene - "Optimizing Productivity For ICP Analysis of Agronomic Samples"
 2:00 PM - 45 mins - Keynote Speaker Dr. Frank Sikora "Experiences on Rebuilding a Soils Lab"
 2:45 PM - 35 mins - Dr. Brenda Tubana - "Silicon in Crop Production: Updates on Testing and Fertilizer Guidelines"
 3:20 PM - 35 mins - Dr. Kristin Hicks "Simplified Approach to Developing Tissue Nutrient Reference Ranges with Cannabis sativa as a Model"
 4:00 PM Travel to Soil Lab: Soil Lab Tour and Discussions - Includes Old Rotation and Cullars Rotation - Dr. Charles Mitchell will host discussion sections
 5:00 PM Travel to Tour Hotel Garden
 6:00 PM Free Time - Tourist Tuesday

Wednesday, June 7th - Ag Heritage Park
 8:00 AM Breakfast and Historical Tea with Tia - Breakout discussion sections determined on Tuesday, schedule meetings with vendors
 9:00 AM - 30 mins - Nancy Bohl Bormann- "ManureDB: Creating a nationwide manure test database"
 9:30 AM - 30 mins - Bob Miller ALP - "Soil carbon sequestration and measurement uncertainty"
 10:00 AM - 30 mins - Discussion Section - Hosted by Dr. Frank Sikora and Dr. David Butler "Significance of high tunnels - tomato"
 10:30 AM - 15 mins - Dr. Nathan McKinney "Administrative Advisor Update"
 10:45 AM - 15 mins - Dr. Manjula Nathan - "Updates on North Central Extension and Research activities (NCERA-13)"
 11:00 AM - 20 mins - Dr. Charlie Mitchell - "History of SERA 6"
 11:30 AM SERA-6 Business Meeting: Future of SERA 6
 12:00 PM Goodbye and Depart

Photos are available at: https://soillab.tennessee.edu/sera-6/sera-6-photos/sera-6-2023-photos/

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

OUTCOMES

Agricultural Analysis for Stakeholders and Researchers: Twelve laboratories (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, OK, SC, TN, & TX) provided oral reports at the annual meeting. Eight of those reported, via written reports, routine soil analysis on 692,635 soil samples for clients and researchers including fertilizer and lime recommendations on a large percentage of the samples (stakeholder or non-research samples). Analyses were also completed on 21,316 water samples, 23,000 plant samples, 18,490 forage samples, and 3,484 byproduct/manure samples, facilitating sound nutrient management, animal health, and water quality (Appendix, Figure 1 & Table 2).

OUTPUTS

Manure DB: A project lead for the national Manure DB project (http://manuredb.umn.edu/), Dr. Nancy Bormann, presented the effort to the SERA6 group and sought collaborators. The project will be ongoing as datasets are requested for continuing years. Several SERA6 labs have provided or committed to providing data for the ManureDb Project.

FRST Project: The FRST Project is composed of over 100 individuals representing 41 land-grant (40 states and one territory), two state universities, one private university, three USDA divisions (Agricultural Research Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Farm Service Agency), three not-for-profit organizations, and one State Department of Agriculture. Many of the FRST collaborators are members of one of the four existing multi-state soil testing projects: NCERA-13, NECC-1012, SERA-6, and WERA-103. The FRST Project has applied with agInnovation for consideration as a National Research Support Program (NRSP) and this will be voted on by the Agricultural Experiment Station Directors in September 2023. The FRST Project is led by Deanna Osmond with an executive (founding member) committee of Nathan Slaton (Univ of Arkansas, SERA-6), John Spargo (Penn State Univ., NECC-1012), Pete Kleinman (USDA-ARS), and Josh McGrath (SERA-6, University of Kentucky). Other SERA-6 members who participate in FRST activities include Gerson Drescher (University of Arkansas), Luke Gatiboni (North Carolina State University), David Kissel (retired, University of Georgia), Jay Lessl (University of Georgia), Rao Mylavarapu (University of Florida), & Jim Wang (Louisiana State University), but many other members participate.  

Listserv: The SERA6 groups maintain an active listserv to support laboratory operations and personnel decisions. The listserv is hosted by UGA and updated annually to maintain current participants. In 2023, 11 topics were discussed amongst the laboratories using the listserv. (Appendix, Table 1)

Website: SERA6 has maintained a website for its members and the public to access for decades, hosted by Clemson University and more recently by University of Georgia. Updates have been made in recent years.

The website address for the webpage is https://aesl.ces.uga.edu/sera6/.

ACTIVITIES

1. Soil Depth Study: Starting in 2022, ten states [AR (8), FL (4), GA (6) LA (5), MS (6), NC (6), OK (5), TN (8), VA (10), & WV (4)] contributed 62 total soils for the Soil Sample Depth Project coordinated by the FRST Project activity led by Dr. Steve Cullman (Oregon State Univ). The soils samples will be analyzed for selected soil chemical and physical properties (e.g., soil pH, organic matter, extractable nutrients, & soil texture) by various land grant university laboratories. The goal is to advance our understanding of the relationships among soil depths for estimating soil test data from soil depth increments, predicting soil test values at unsampled depths, and identifying the key drivers of soil stratification. One or more manuscripts and a dataset will be developed and published with all soil sample contributors as co-authors of the dataset.
2. Lime Calibration Study: The FRST project developed plans for a nationwide soil collection for a lime requirement calibration study. SERA6 states were recruited for this soil collection effort. The soil collection is coordinated by Bob Miller, ALP. The goal is to collect more than 100 acidic soils from around the USA to conduct laboratory incubations to examine soil pH response to lime rate for calibrating state lime recommendations.
3. SERA6 members participated in a lime requirement survey that was started in 2022 by providing lime rate recommendations using analytical data from 6 reference soils, soil pH method, and lime requirement determination method. This project was coordinated by FRST member John Jones (Univ Wisconsin), Bob Miller (ALP), and Nathan Slaton (Univ Arkansas). The survey intends to evaluate the variability of lime recommendations and evaluate changes in lab methods for soil pH and lime requirement determination (compared to 40 years ago), following a similar protocol as SERA6 members did in comparing soil-test-based phosphorus and potassium rate recommendations.

IMPACTS

• The most tangible short-term impact of the SERA6 workgroup on stakeholders is the collective service provided to the agricultural industry in the Southern region. Collectively, the twelve (12) reporting SERA6 laboratories provided soil testing for more than 692,000+ soil samples, 39,000+ water and forage samples, 23,000+ plant samples, and 3,000+ byproduct/manure samples. (Appendix, Figure 1 & Table 2). SERA6 members are major contributors to their institution/agency’s agricultural research, Extension, and service efforts. Many state labs provide additional testing for soilless media, feed, and other sample types such as fertilizer, nematodes, microbiological, soil health, and research.
• SERA6 members were co-authors of 2 datasets and 2 papers generated by the FRST Project summarizing a national survey on soil test recommendations (dataset, Spargo et al., 2023), a Mehlich-3 soil test correlation and calibration dataset for soybean from Arkansas (dataset, Slaton et al., 2023), a common method for calculating relative crop yield (Pearce et al., 2023), and developing a minimum dataset for soil test correlation and calibration research for developing soil-test-based recommendations (Slaton et al., 2023). These collaborative, multistate efforts align with objectives 3 and 4 and are aimed at developing better soil-test-based recommendations, enhancing data sharing and reuse among states to support soil-test-based recommendations, and standardizing recommendation development procedures among states.  

The faculty and staff working the SERA6 laboratories are highly collaborative, and the group collectively serves as resources for one another with interactions at the SERA6 annual meeting, SERA6 LISTSERV, and FRST activities. The members help each other troubleshoot lab problems, communicate about equipment performance and durability, lab supplies & services, and position vacancies. Evidence of the impact is that 13 of the 15 (all except Virginia and Puerto Rico) states in the Southern Region were represented at the annual meeting, along with representatives from two additional states (Minnesota and Missouri).