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Soil Test Results - No Scott's Starter Formula?

16 years ago

for some reason it won't let me post a new thread but it will let me reply to existing threads... :shrug: my office's proxy server has to be screwed-up, is anyone else having this problem?

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Comments (7)

arjo_reich
Original Author
16 years ago
I got my soil test results back from the university this afternoon and to be quite honest, it's looking way++ better than I thought it would, but I have this one question/doubt about my plan of attack...

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Water pH - 6.1
Phosphorus - 120+ ppm (very high)
Potassium - 320+ ppm (very high)
Calcium - 1280+ ppm (sufficient)
Magnesium - 64+ ppm (sufficient)
Organic M. - 2.9%

Lawn, Cool Season
ESTABLISHMENT: Apply 4.4 lbs. of 34-0-0 or 5.0 lbs. of 30-3-4 or 5.4 lbs. of 28-3-3 or 29-3-4 per 1000 sq. ft. A slow release formulation of nitrogen may give the best results. Select an appropriate maintenance schedule (see section B below) and begin following that schedule the very next spring or fall season after lawn establishment....

It goes on to say in the maintenance schedule how I need to choose fertilizers that contain very low amounts of P & K at the along normal KGB fertilization schedule.
--------------------------------------

Here's where I'm concerned. The original plan was to lay down an application of Scott's Starter Fertilizer (20-27-5) on top of the freshly sown seedbed of my Galaxy Plus KBG but looking at the recommendations and how high my current potassium and phosphorus values are I figure that's out however I'm unsure if putting something that is so very high in nitrogen onto the newly sown seedbed is safe...?

If so, can anyone recommend a product along those lines ( 34-0-0 ) that i could use on what will be my freshly sown seedbed?
texas_weed
16 years ago
Do not add anything other than nitrogen only. It doesn't have to be 34-0-0, it can be any nitrogen only product of X-0-0.

What they said is a slow release formula and I agree with that. If there is a lesco dealer in your area they have an excellent 100% slow release of 39-0-0.

The trick is to apply 1-pound of nitrogen per 1000/ft2. so take whatever you get and divide the nitrogen number into 100. So for exaple if it is 34-0-0, then 100/34 = 3 pounds of product per 1000/ft2
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Hopefully someone with lime experience will give you an authoritative answer, but off hand, 40 pounds seems like twice as much as you need at one time. I would split the amount for spring and fall. Lets say you have 2,000 square feet to cover at 20 pounds per 1,000. Lime comes in 40 pound bags so you'll use the entire bag to cover the 2,000 square feet. Start with 10 pounds of lime in the spreader and the setting mostly closed off. Then run over the lawn and see how you did. If you ran out of lime early, then estimate how many square feet you covered and how much is remaining. If you covered exactly 1/4 of the lawn, then the setting is exactly right. If you went over less than 1/4 of the lawn, then you need to close it off more. If you went over the entire lawn and had some left over, then you can open up the spreader to allow more to flow out. This is a trial and error method, but it is better than totally guessing. Estimate how much you have left over in the hopper and guess at a different setting. Once you have that setting, write it on the bag or somewhere in the garage so you can remember it for the fall. I would not sweat the fertilizer ratios. Just get sort of in the ballpark and follow the rate listed on the bag for your spreader model.
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I wouldn't do anything to try to treat for iron unless you have chlorosis. Adding iron isn't likely to help, because the issue isn't a lack of iron, but an inability of plants to use the iron that is there. As Bill noted, grass will probably not have a problem using the iron. If you have plants that have problems, you can deal with those plants, and you'll have much better success that way. Spreading sulfur won't help much. It needs to be under the soil or too much of it is lost to offgassing. If you've got chlorotic plants, sprayinh the leaves with water soluble iron will providfe a quick greenup, but there's a thin line between spraying enough to help and spraying too much and burning. Once it's hot out, spraying any will likely burn the leaves. Also, spraying in liquid form is very short lived. To provide a longer effect, drill holes with a bulb augur add soil sulfur and cover with dirt. Adding organic matter as often as possible will also help. The sulfur takes longer to help, but it's longer lived. In between those is adding chelated iron. With a 7.8 pH, EDTA iron chelate will probably not help, and you'll need to use EDDHA to get good results. Unfortunately, EDHA is more expensive and not as easy to find as EDTA. You should also water deeply and let the soil dry before watering again. For trees, about once a month, water around the drip line very deeply. I set the hose in several spots around the tree and let it run on a trickle for a half hour or so. I think the amount you want to provide is 5 gallons of water per inch of trunk diameter (once a month).
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Conventional advice is that you do not want to apply more than one pound of nitrogen per thousand sq ft of lawn. Fertilizers are labeled with percentages of NPK that they contain. 20-10-10 means the bag has 20%N (nitrogen), 10% P (phosphorous) and 10% K (potasium). Dropping 5 lbs of product over 1000 sq ft would resultin 1 lb of N and 1/2 lb. ea. of P and K. As the rule is that you do not want to drop more than 1# of N, at a time, you can deduce that the testing facility is advising that you feed 1/2# each of P and K, and 1# of N. Based on the above, you should be able to calculate what rate to drop any given fertilizer to achieve at least one of the NPK nutrients. Many garden stores or nurseries or Lesco stores sell what is called triple NPKs, e.g. 10-10-10, 12-12-12 or 19-19-19 if you can't find exactly 20-10-10. Ignoring enviormental issues and some debateable observations/arguements, adding up to a pound of P and/or K is not going to hurt the grass. Adding more than a pound of N can have adverse consequences. Point is, you can use a triple NPK at a drop rate of 1# of N per thousand sq ft (which would also be dropping 1# of P and K) without harm. or you could drop a tripple at half rate (1/2# of NPK per thousand sq ft.) and make up the other recommended 1/2# of N, by dropping 1/2N using Milorganite (organic), urea or any fertilizer (synthetic) labled X-0-0.
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toxcrusadr-- the *path* is supposedly 8' wide, not the spreader. And the path does seem to be... I didn't stop to measure it though : ) If that sounds funny though, I wonder if that's why I ran out of fertilizer sooner than I expected to... I'm not sure I'm up to all that calculating-- can I assume though that the higher the number, the more grains it puts out at once? The people at the store (who seem very knowledgeable, I mean) said that I want one bag to cover a quarter acre. Which I think is about the amount of grass we have, maybe a bit more. We have a tiny bit over a half acre total but that of course includes the house/pool/driveway/pavers out back etc. Regardless, that bag lasted for a bout 1/3 of my grass. I went back for 2 more bags and changed the setting on the spreader-- think from 8 to 6 and got some more range out of it. Still had to open the third bag though. Sigh. Maybe I should look for a highly rated spreader and buy that. This one was borrowed from my brother-in-law and I think I have found it online and if I'm right about which it is (the Scotts classic drop spreader), I see that it gets bad reviews, lots of them. Same reasons. I'm learning a lot of lessons lately, the hard way... Isn't that supposed to be the best way though? Or something. Oh and just FYI, that's only one of several bare patches. And there are plenty of weeds, trust me. It's hard to tell from this one picture but they are everywhere, all kinds. Some areas have less but some areas are also straight weeds so it all balances out, ha.
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arjo_reich
Original Author
16 years ago
found the lesco part number for that fertilizer you mentioned - #000777. My local store is out of stock on it, lol. Can have it in sometime next week, but not by sunday when I'm laying it down.

Don't suppose it would be a smart idea to go trapsing all over the lawn four days after seeding when everything's just starting to get right and ready to germinate. :sigh:

The local big orange box store has a bag of 34-0-0 but it's not a time released formula and I'm pretty sure that would be too much, too quick for my newly seeded lawn.
bpgreen
16 years ago
"The local big orange box store has a bag of 34-0-0 but it's not a time released formula and I'm pretty sure that would be too much, too quick for my newly seeded lawn."

You can apply less of it and apply more later on. The 34 is just a %, so if you'd rather have 17-0-0, just use 1/2 as much of the 34-0-0 for the same results.
arjo_reich
Original Author
16 years ago
:nods:

thanx for all the advice. Ideally I wouldn't be in a situation where I'm seeding a cool-season grass in april but my options were limited after last year's drought.

lol, just my luck that our extreme drought conditions of last year would be followed by flood warnings this spring...
philes21
16 years ago
You can walk around on that lawn, and spread some fert, with your hand-held whirley spreader, at four or five days, but I would not do it at nine, ten, or eleven days.

If you miss the window of opportunity, you're really going to have to wait until the first or second mow. (Because some of the sprouts will still be quite short).

And yes, a partial, or light, application, followed by another one two or three weeks later, will keep you from over applying anything.

Let us know, as you go along, how you're doing.
arjo_reich
Original Author
16 years ago
OK. Fast forward a little over three weeks and here we are...

Before I seeded back then I put down 1.7 lbs per 1000 sq. ft. of the 34-0-0 fast-acting urea as a kind of "half-dose" like bpgreen suggested.

Now my grass is germinating and starting to come in nicely and I was wondering when you guys recommend rolling out that other 1.7 lbs per 1000 sq. ft. on the new lawn? It seems to me like the timing could be rather tricky because we're rapidly approaching the heat of summer here in the next couple months but at the same time I didn't know if I should hold off all the way until labor day in 4+ months.

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