1. Any organic fertilizer be it grain or animal by product will add some OM to your soil but far and away the best source of OM is mulched grass clippings and leaves. Its verrry hard to maintain a good healthy organic lawn without mulching clippings back into the soil. So as far as OM goes one organic fert is as good as another.

2. Compost is nice but not absolutely neccessary. If you want to innoculate your soil with beneficial microbes do some research on oxygenated compost tea and see if that seems more do-able for you. If neither option seems to work don't fret too much. If you feed the soil the bugz will come. Just takes a little longer.

3. Depends on what your pH is. I generally think that chasing pH with lime is a poor choice long term. Get off the chemicals and see if your pH doesn't self correct before you worry about applying anything else.

4. At this point any organic fert is going to be fine.

5. As you transition over I think its wise to continue to pay attention to how much N you're putting down for another season or two but after that you'll move away from thinking in terms of NPK. Pick the product that's easiest and cheapest for you to apply. Don't over complicate matters. IMO the main thing you need to focus on is building up your OM. Never miss a chance to feed your soil.

Thanks decklap.

1. The minute I have controlled my red thread I'll go back to mulching. In the meantime I'll do a soil test and find a good organic fertilizer to start with like Jonathan Green 8-3-1 or Espoma with "bio-tone". I think I'll hit the grains hard next year.

5. I just read a thread called "If not NPK, what are the benchmarks?". As I transition to organic I'll keep an eye that I'm feeding my grass the N it needs. If I did the math correctly, the S-4step program gave me about 3#/1000sqft of N each year. I have Rye/Fescue/KGB, is 3#/1000sqft of N per year a good number to shoot for as I work on an annual program?

I would mulch with Red Thread regardless. For the most part turf disease isn't like catching a cold. The fungi that cause them are almost always present in the soil but don't present a problem until the enviroment starts to favor them so it isn't like you'll be re-infecting your soil. Almost all diseases trace back to poor culture in one form or another.

3# is fine but you can adjust that up or down depending on your satisfaction level.

Hmm, I'll have to think about mulching regardless of disease. A lawngeek neighbor also had red thread and last year decided to use a power dethatcher followed by a lawn vacuum to try and remove all of the red thread spores from his yard. I don't think I have the energy for that, but we'll see - it seems excessive to me.

Here are my local options for organic fertilizers and the cost per 1000sqft:
$4.12 (2-1-2) Cracked Corn
$4.13 (11-2-2)Scotts Organic Lawn Food
$4.40 (5-2-0) Miloganite
$5.44 (7-2-1) Soybean meal
$5.60 (8-3-1) Jonathan Green
$5.60 (3-1-2) Alfalfa pellets
$7.20 (10-2-6)Ringers
$10.0 (7-2-2) Espoma Organic with Bio-Tone

The cost was calculated applying the grains at 20#/1000 and the commercial ones as instructed on the bag. It would be interesting to normalize to 1lb of N and see how the list changes even though some serve different purposes (e.g. corn meal).

I haven't decided what I'll try: SBM, Alfalfa, Jonathan Green all seem good for a third application. I'll try Miloganite as a winterizer and corn meal in the spring for fungal control.

Has anyone tried Espoma Organic Lawn Food with Bio-tone? (I may make a seperate thread for this) With my heavy use of chemicals over the past 5 years I'm tempted to try this Bio-tone stuff but it is expensive. Here's the description:
"Bio-tone Beneficial Microbes: Contains 3,804,720 CFU's per lb. (15 species) of beneficial bacteria that help promote faster greening, deeper roots, and improved soil structure."

Here is a link that might be useful: Espoma w/Bio-tone

SBM & Milorganite are the most cost effective in terms of results. The SBM tag should indicate 44% protein, which is what you want instead of nitrogen percentage. Your price list gives credence to my thought I am spending too much money on my lawn ($4 gas is taking my lawn budget to 0). I've found some urea & biosolid mixed fert @ 2.40/1000 that I may try as a replacement to 1/2 of my grain application. While not organic, cost does become a consideration.

I have never tried any of the Espoma products. Experimenting is half the fun. Let us know how it works if you try it.

If there's a Starbucks nearby, you could add this one to your list:
$0 (2.28-.06-.6) Used Coffee Grounds

Cvette,

Just curious as to what you decided to start with...I'm in the same boat :-)

To throw my 2 cents in:

Chemical warfare was the norm on my lawn for many years before we bought the house. This spring I switched to organic ferts, infrequent watering and mowing high. The difference is mind boggling. I clearly have the best lawn around. Its thick and green and almost weedless.

I used soybean meal (which some people don't think is organic, btw, but its fine with me) and then Milorganic over the summer. I'll hit it with soybean again over labor day.

My advice: just dive in

This spring I switched to organic ferts, infrequent watering and mowing high. The difference is mind boggling. I clearly have the best lawn around. Its thick and green and almost weedless.

The difference is mind boggling but I suspect it is more from the proper watering and mowing than from the fertilizer. As much as I like to believe that organic fertilizer is the magic bullet, I've seen similarly mind boggling results on chemically treated lawns.

But nevermind that!!! If you look at the ingredients on a bag of Espoma or any other commercially bagged organic fertilizer, it will list all the grains we talk about here. The point being that there is no difference between commercially bagged organic fertilizer and what you can buy at the feed store. The organic fertilizer companies, for some reason, find it important to add potassium sulfate (potash or sulfate of potash). I'm not sure why because the results from simply using one grain are spectacular enough for me.

ljbrandt, if you have not already picked something to start with, pick the lowest priced ground up grain, nut, bean, or seed you can get at your local feed store. I like corn meal in my neighborhood but some people can't get corn meal. Some can get soy bean meal for less than I can get corn meal for so they use that. If you live in eastern Indiana or western Ohio, you might find corn gluten meal at 100 pounds for $8. That's the best deal in town. Alfalfa pellets (sold as rabbit food) are available almost everywhere. If nothing else, wheat flour can be found in 25 pound bags at many grocery stores. bpgreen has had excellent results using used coffee grounds from Starbucks (free, Free, FREE!).

There are lots of sources for lots of materials. Yes, just dive in.

what's the best way to spread alfalfa pellets?

I don't know of any spreader that will do it. I carry the bag out in my daughter's wagon, scoop it out of the bag with a coffee can, and toss it around as evenly as I can.