i have been reading about watering too on this forum. I need to find out how many minutes it will take for 1" of water on the ground for my system. do you apply Alfalfa every week? are those in pellets or meal form? You water only once a week?

set tuna cans around the yard and see how long it takes your sprinklers to fill them up. Organics take 3 weeks to start working. What type of grass do you have? On my Bermuda, I apply monthly. I do not think that is the same with all grasses. Bermuda has high nitrogen needs. I use alfalfa pellets because they are cheap and readily available right down the street from me. I believe soybean meal and cottonseed meal (15lbs/1k) have a higher nitrogen content and are the best bang for your buck so to speak.

With alfalfa pellets, you throw them down, water when you want. They will swell up and burst open. What does not fall between the turf, you can use a garden hose to sweep across the yard. I usually just kick around by foot, if too much is in one spot covering the blades.

Yes, water once a week. I am in Texas and with all the rain that we have had, I have only had to turn on my sprinklers once so far this year. The idea is to water deeply and infrequently. That is 1" all at once one time a week while the temps are in the 90's. Every 5 days in the 100's. This helps the grass grown long roots, detours weeds from sprouting, and helps minimize disease and fungus. Depending on how you are watering now, you may have to cut back slowly to the 1" per week. If you are watering daily, start cutting back to every other day, and then 2-3 times a week and then eventually once a week or in your case with temps in the 100's, once every 5 days

I'm watering three times a week, never estimated the amount of water going into the ground. Last fall I reseeded yard with Gard'n Wise Premium Fescue Blend, did not get expected results. Something is wrong. Might reseed this time with K31 fescue as it's a lot cheaper than that one.

To find all the feed stores near you at one time, go to Google Maps and type in, "Feed stores near Wichita, KS" Then start making calls. Ask for rabbit food sized alfalfa pellets. You don't want horse cubes. I'm always careful to say pellets to be sure I don't get a bale of alfalfa. Apply at 10 pounds per 1,000 for your first app. The reason is if you overdose your first time, the alfalfa will not decompose fast enough by the aerobic microbes. That leaves it up to the anerobic or smelly microbes to decompose it. If you put the first dose down lightly that will give the soil microbes a chance to populate enough so that a normal dose of 15 pounds would work. I think you'll see a huge improvement just from 10 pounds. I'm starting over with a new lawn at a new house this year. My first dose of alfalfa went down a month ago but only on the real grass. The weeds are fending for themselves. The fertilized grass is really dense and lush looking, but we've had ton's of rain to help it along. The weeds and prairie grasses are green enough - not brown, so that's good, but they're not lush by any definition.

K31 fescue is antique fescue. Maybe primitive is a better term. Every kind of fescue is a better choice for lawns than K31. You can get cheaper fescue seed but don't get K31 (please). With seed you do get what you pay for. Ideally you would look for seed with 0.00 weed and 0.00 other crop on the guaranteed analysis. The bad weeds have seeds the size of dust, so 0.02% weed seed could be thousands of potential plants.

Thanks dchall for the pointers. I found a co-op that sells alfalfa pellets/meal($24/ 100lb) and a farm which sells ground corn meal ($13/ 50lb bag). I did not ask them about the size, but sure will do when I'm there. If I buy meal, the rate should be the same isn't?

Rate is the same.

I had another question: Can i apply alfalfa and soybean meal together or should i wait? I was able to find a place where they sell soybean meal for almost the same price as corn meal. I'm sure it's going to GMO Soy. From discussions in the forum, I read that soybean meal is better than corn meal.

You can apply them together, but too much mass at once can make a very bad smell for a while as it rots.

Just starting out, I'd limit applications to 10-15 pounds per thousand square feet and then let it sit for a couple weeks before applying again. So if the sum total is 15 pounds, great. If higher, split into two apps.

Makes sense. I'll go with alfalfa first and then soy bean meal.

Agree. The total amount is the same whether you mix them together or apply separately. So 10 pounds per thousand for soy OR 10 pounds per thousand for corn/soy/alfalfa all mixed together.

I also found out that alfalfa pellets for rabbit food has something else in them in addition to alfalfa . Alfalfa pellets for horses is just pure alfalfa.

I'm going to go first just with alfalfa as it might another week to get soybean meal from the co-op. And it seems like today it's going to rain too.

Perfect! Of course, any other combo with organics would also have been perfect. :-)

So put down 50 lb of alfalfa pellets on ~4500 sqft of yard. That's the size of the pellet. Did not go through my spreader.

I use the Scott's Edgeguard spreader (I have the smaller one and the bigger one) and alfalfa pellets go through both of them no problem.

Mine varies. Sometimes yes, sometimes no on my Edgeguard, depending on the size of the alfalfa pellets. The stuff from the pet food store, not so much. Most of the time, the cheap stuff from Tractor Supply (I can't remember the brand offhand, it's in a purple bag) works great.

Recently I read posts by morpheuspa and dchall_san_antonio on using baby shampoo for making soil softer. Can I apply now. Temperatures are around 100+ now.

Yep! Shampoo applications are fine at any temperature. They'll actually help the soil hold a touch of extra water, so might be a tiny advantage at 100+.