You also get the wisdom of the ages and people who might not have the same experiences. The advice I gave is based on years (and years) of reading and moderating forums for amateurs and professionals. Applying fertilizer on Memorial Day might be too late in your area due to the onset of summer heat, but as a starting point, it is a very easy date to remember. Whether you get disease or not depends also on grass variety, air circulation, dew, humidity, soil type, and other factors. I'm not sure why Georgia would be much different from other places where the taller grasses are the healthier ones. At the same time that the wisdom of the ages sounds like a good idea, you also get the senility of the aged. Tupersan is relatively new to my repertoire of garden products. I became 100% organic before I heard of it and seem to have a block about that product. In general I don't put any faith in preemergent herbicides but people I respect tell me they work. I do recall from my relatively recent reading that Tupersan works as tiemco says. Professional grass growers (livestock producers) fertilize with 1/4 of their annual nitrogen in the spring, and they always apply it after the initial flush of green growth has ended. They apply 3/4 of the annual nitrogen in the fall. They do it this way to minimize their mowing workload and to spread the productive growth along throughout the entire growing season. The wisdom of the ages here at GardenWeb also agrees with tiemco that combination fertilizer/weed killer products are not going to do what you expect them to do and it is better to use different products for the different requirements. Yes Mother Nature has Her own ideas about watering, but for what you do, you do not have to encourage weeds. Far too many people set their sprinkler to operate for 10 minutes every day. That schedule is going to germinate every seed in the garden. You have control over your own watering. Allowing the soil surface to dry out as much as you can will develop deep, drought resistant roots as well as minimize weed seed germination.

crouch- If you believe your soil is compacted, you should consider aerating as part of your late summer/early fall lawn care program. Try sticking a long (6" or so) screwdriver into your soil. If it is tough to get it in to the handle, you may well have a compaction issue. Not sure where in Jersey you are, but right around Labor Day is when I get into aerating/overseeding activities in CT. Cold overnight temps, shorter days, and an abundance of maple leaves makes October much too late around here for a high success rate with kbg overseeding. I was absolutely blown away with the results of my efforts last fall, which I moved up to Sept 2-4 (I know everyone says "fall overseeding," but "late summer" would be more precise). Of course I'd love to pat myself on the back as some sort of lawn guru, but the truth is we had pleasant days, not too cool nights, regular rain, etc. right into Thanksgiving! With crabgrass dying with the first good frost, I may not automatically reach for the roundup. I have found that cutting my existing crabgrass/lawn as short as possible and bagging/raking the clippings allows me to seed immediately without the use of roundup. If timed properly, the desirable seed germinates and gets strong enough in the fall so I can apply a pre-m in the spring to prevent the crabgrass seed from germinating. I wouldn't necessarily give up on it this year, but I can't expect you will get optimal results at this point either. I would heed billhill's advice about organic material and watering. KBG is a notorious slow germinator. I would also seriously consider having a soil test done. I understand you wanting to be able to mentally turn the corner on this one way or another and nobody likes to see their hard work go unrewarded. Maybe adjust expectations downward and hope to be pleasantly surprised now. Armed with the knowledge you can gain on this board, this may well be the last spring you need to endure lawn envy.

really hard to tell for sure but typically fungus in my area is reddish/yellow. You may have multiple problems. The problem with newbies is that they want to solve problems with chemicals (I was one of the worst offenders). The worst time to add fertilizer is when a grass is stressed and excessive nitrogen will show up as patterns matching the application method. If you just applied the nitrogen within the last few days you can reduce the effect by watering heavily for one day but if you applied it more than a few days ago you are probably past the danger period. Again, check the soil moisture at about 2-6" deep at several areas in your lawn each week. It should be slightly wet the day of watering and then let it go to slightly damp before watering again. Wet all the time just rots the roots and causes yellowing due to lack of nutrients. With most soils a twice weekly 1" watering in the summer is all you need. When the grass comes back on it's own (and I'm almost certain it will) then evaluate the soil like I said and take any corrective action required. Guessing and throwing chemicals at it will probably make things worse.

Get the name of the landscapers so you can be sure to never use them in the future. The big mistake was putting down a netting that needs to pull up. That will inevitably pull up new grass. Yes it is normal...when the landscapers didn't do a great job of applying evenly. But sometimes it happens anyway. Freezing temps should not hurt anything. Again, not ideal, but not a huge problem. You have other problems much worse. You don't want to wash away the seed, and you don't want soggy soil. You do want the seed to be continuously moist for 2-3 weeks. Walk on it. Return the new seed. Pull up the plastic netting, gently, the sooner the better. Mother Nature almost never used plastic netting when She reseeds. As Daniel mentioned, now is not the best time to be seeding, but in WI you will likely not have the problems most of us have (weeds and summer die off). The alternative was to have weeds all summer. Based on what the landscaper has demonstrated, it is unlikely he killed the weeds prior to seeding. Having said that, since you had no growth for so long, it could be he did kill the weeds. They usually pop up very early in the daily watering process. If you can find the seed they used, that would help to determine what the lawn will look like. Kentucky bluegrass spreads nicely without having to reseed every year. Fescue and rye do not have the spreading feature, so they often need to be reseeded in the fall. When you get 80% germination (use your judgement on that), then you can start backing off on the watering schedule. Once the lawn is established (next spring), you will be watering deeply and infrequently. Deeply means 1 inch all at one time. The frequency depends on air temperature, so in your area you will likely water every other week for most of the year. Search this forum for more on that. Your next question will be, when can I mow? Set your mower to the highest setting and mow when the grass is about 5 inches high. Are you interested in organic fertilizers? I've been using organic only since 2002. It works great, very safe for the grass, and safe for people and pets. Milorganite is the big one for the WI area (duh), but there are others which I prefer. You can apply organic now. If you prefer something like Scott's, then wait until the end of next month or early June. If someone tries to sell you weed n feed, ignore them. That is one of those 'too good to be true' products. It can work for some people, but for beginners, it almost never works. Fertilizer goes down in late May and herbicide goes on in April. Applying both at one time goofs up the timing for either/both.