Wow, did we break the 3-week drought on Sunday. Over 3.5 inches of rain fell here in about 60 to 90 minutes. Union, Missouri got 4 inches. The 3.5 inches in my tin can and the 3.5 inches reported by the local news meteorologist correspond nicely. Those tin food cans really work.

We even got about a quarter-inch the day before on Saturday. Before the rain on Saturday, I applied about 26 pounds of CGM (Corn Gluten Meal from Bradfield Organics--their Luscious Lawn CGM product) to my front and side zoysia lawns. (Zoysia is a warm-season lawn. You wouldn't want to apply fertilizer right now to a cool-season lawn like bluegrass, fescue, or rye.) So my application rate was roughly 8 pounds of CGM per 1,000 square feet, but I applied more to the front lawn than the side lawns, possibly bringing the front lawn's application rate up to the usual 10 pounds of CGM per 1,000 square feet, or roughly 1 pound of Nitrogen per 1,000 square feet (or more precisely 0.9 pounds of Nitrogen). I didn't apply any to the backyard.

I was using CGM here as a fertilizer, not as preemergent weed control. As a preemergent you might choose to apply 20 pounds or more per 1,000 square feet.

I actually was planning to apply the CGM back in June, but we had a 3-week drought after June 16, so I didn't find an opportune time to apply it after that date. I preferred using rain over a sprinkler to water-in the CGM.

Dr. Christians of Iowa State says to water in the CGM with a quarter inch of rain or sprinkler water. I was surprised to re-read that after Saturday's quarter-inch of rain because that little amount of rain hardly dissolved or disintegrated the CGM at all.

Even after Sunday's deluge of 3.5 inches of rain in about 75 minutes, the CGM still hadn't disintegrated totally. The CGM was less visible, for sure. All that rain drove it deeper down into the grass but if you looked at the grass closely you could see lots of CGM still undisintegrated. I guess it takes time for CGM pellets to disassemble fully.

Maybe I'm wrong but I think I recall the 3-1-5 alfalfa pellets with chicken or porcine meat meal disintegrated much faster and more easily than the 9-0-0 Corn Gluten Meal when I applied the Bradfield Alfalfa on April 11. Or maybe it's just the case that the darker alfalfa pellets are less conspicuous than the brightly colored corn pellets, but I do believe the alfalfa pellets dissolved faster.

Another difference between the two natural fertilizers is that the corn-like smell of the CGM can linger for a couple days.

I gotta tell ya the natural alfalfa plus chicken/porcine meat meal gave my zoysia a beautifully sublime green color that I had never seen before. We'll see what the CGM does.