This publication represents the first in a series of newsletters aimed at communicating news and information about research in the Department of Agronomy. Since 1908, the Department has had a tradition of quality research in crops and soils. Research in turfgrass science dates back to 1929. Over the years, as the faculty has grown in response to new challenges and opportunities, the research program has expanded. Currently, much of the Department's research is directly applicable to the immediate problems and needs of production agriculture. But we are also using our expertise to focus on land use concerns in rural and urban communities and on projects of a more basic nature.	The fundamental theme of all of the Department's projects, however, is that our research, applied or basic, is aimed at the needs and concerns of Pennsylvania's agricultural industry.      The idea for this newsletter came to me when I realized that there was some confusion, misinterpretation, and, quite frankly, some skepticism in the state concerning the relevance of our programs to production agriculture. It became clear to me that although we are doing relevant research and publishing articles in scientific journals, we have not regularly communicated our results to the Pennsylvania agricultural industry. That's where this newsletter series comes in.      Our plan is to publish a newsletter three times per year. Each issue will showcase a research project from each of the Department's three sections: crop, soil, and turfgrass science.	In addition, there will be less detailed "news briefs" highlighting research that might be particularly timely. We hope that you will find this a useful and informative publication, and we welcome your comments and suggestions.      A final note: in an effort to reach a broad cross section of the agricultural industry in the state, we have obtained mailing lists from a number of sources. We did our best to remove duplicate addresses, but some of you will probably receive more than one copy of this newsletter. We apologize for the inconvenience and invite you to contact Joy Drohan (email jrr131@psu.edu; fax (814) 865-3378; phone (814) 863-0037) so she can correct the mistake. Thank you. Steve Fales