AJ, I do not have any experience with UMAXX, all I know is claims I have read in the past 30-minutes. My first thought when I read Slow Release Urea 46-0-0; is that is impossible, but after reading the MSDS I an assured it is 46-0-0 as this is government registered information. Looks to be as safe as Urea, almost no warnings, just a minor irritant to eyes, lungs, and skin. No known chronic effects to exposure. Source is synthetic organic same as urea. So it appears to be evirometally friendly. If the product does half of what it claims, I would be impressed, but I am a skeptic. What I cannot find is any independent case study to back any of the manufacture claims up. Not saying they are not true, just cannot verify. My problems and/or blank spots. Â Where to get it? Looks like custom order from TN only, significantly adding to a mystery cost. Â Does it really last 12 to 16 weeks, and if so will it release enough fast enough for aggressive varieties of Bermuda grass such as Tifsport, Tifeagle, etc. If it does the job, and is competitively priced to traditional slow release urea products, then great. Â Since it is an incomplete fertilizer, and I do not see the manufacture offering a complete fertilizer would mean you still need a traditional complete product once in the spring or fall. Put it too you this way. If a rep came to my farm or landscape business, gives me a couple hundred pounds for a sample to try, I would give it an college try. If it does what it says and competitive pricing, I would give it a nod. Last comment is the manufacture states the product or technology has been used in UK since the 60's. So if someone can point me to where to verify and independent studies i would appreciate it.

first of all, do you frequently stop and leave the rider running? if so that WILL cause dead spots from the engine heat in under a minute. your grass should be SHORT. 1" is right at borderline, if you want a golf course look it should be 1/2" to 3/4" and mowed 2x a week. bermuda gets thin if allowed to grow much more than that. i cut mine at 2.5", and it gets REAL thin! i don't care to cut it any lower, my yard is too rough and uneven for one thing. you need to water it with 1" of water a WEEK, not once eveyr 3 weeks. a good dose of fertilizer would help as well. lastly, does the problem seem to be more in teh shaded area of your lawn? bermuda really does not like shade at all. in my lawn you can actually see a line in the grass that duplicates the shade patterns of the trees and the house. good bermuda on the sunny side, thin/dying bermuda and weeds in teh parts that get mixed sun/shade.

I can practically guarantee you that your soil is not clay. It may act like clay, but unless you have a clay brick factory in your neighborhood, it is not clay. I want to discourage you from rototilling with all my heart and soul. All it does is fluff the soil and leave an uneven subsurface where the tiller bucks up over a root and digs in where it's soft. After you level the top, that leaves the uneven subsurface for the fluffy soil to settle down against. When all the settling is finished, you will have an uneven surface which leaves your lawnmower scalping as it rolls into the low spots and holes. If your soil surface is uneven now, then you should level it. Search this forum for topics about leveling. If you know the basics of soil then you know about soil structure and the billions of microbes living in the soil. And you know that there are entire species of microbes which cannot survive unless they have air contact and other species which cannot survive IF they have air contact. And that the microbes generally live off of the sugars provided by roots and off the protein provided by dead animals (other microbes, insects, or protinacious plant matter). And you would know that the beneficial fungi in the soil can send miles and miles of microscopic hyphal structures out into the soil to separate "clay" particles and allow air and moisture to penetrate deeply and give that soft feeling when the soil is moist. And you know that you can provide food to those microbes by applying something like alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow), corn meal, soybean meal, cottonseed meal, wheat flour, etc. to the soil at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet and letting the microbes decompose it. And that by spraying the soil with something as simple as shampoo at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet and repeating in 2 weeks you can soften the soil so it no longer has that clay-like look and feel. Well, maybe that went beyond the basics of soil care, but those sort of cover the basics of things you need to know to take it from here. I have been using organic fertilizer (described above) since 2002. When you stop using chemical fertilizers, other issues seem to clear up. I have also stopped using compost because it's expensive, it doesn't seem to help, and it is a royal PITA to apply. I consider what I do to be a 'no hassle' approach to lawn care. It doesn't matter if I over apply organics (I cant) or if the rain comes and washes stuff away (it won't) or if I used it last week and want to use it again this week. You can't make a mistake unless you apply so much that you smother the grass (that's about 80 pounds per 1,000, by the way). The rye grass prolongs the regrowth of bermuda in the spring. You should have a healthy stand of bermuda by the end of April but with the rye, it will shade the bermuda allowing all sorts of problems to happen. So here's the advice part Find the Bermuda Bible online and memorize it Forget about rototilling - concentrate on leveling. Level it next June or July when the bermuda has recovered from the damage caused by the rye. Spray the soil with shampoo to soften it. It should be a clear shampoo like baby shampoo. Apply alfalfa pellets to feed the microbes. The microbes will feed your plants.

I think your pic posting is just fine. And I think your tall lawn looks really nice too. Of course what we're seeing in the photo that looks so beautiful is the tall fescue because of the height. By the end of next summer, as much as I hate to be a pessimist, is probably going to be majority bermuda that we are seeing. Especially with that southern exposure. There is something you might like to try though and it's on the shelves of your local Lowes. It's Greenlight "Bermuda Killer". The price isn't too bad even for repeat applications. Wait until the summer to use it if you want.