Not necessarily wasted. If your lawn is already reasonably thick, not much will establish. If it has lots of holes and patches and very thin areas, then you'll get much more to sprout and grow.

You do have to water for the seed for a month, which is going to make the existing lawn grow like crazy. You're going to have to mow, but you're also going to have to be very, very careful when doing so.

Overseeding can be a bit of a challenge, particularly with KBG due to the slower sprout and establishment time. But for a poor lawn, it can really help.

But at the same time, if it is already KBG and has lots of holes and thin patches, why is that? And what will be done differently to make the new KBG fill in better?

Do you water it regularly? How often and for how long? (I'm going to guess you water it more than 3x per week)

Is it growing in the shade of a building, tree, shrubs, fence, or some other structure?

How high/low do you mow? (I'm going to guess you mow it at or below the mid notch on the mower)

Thanks for the replies. The lawn is in good shape. Just wanted to introduce new cultivars and improve thickness. There are no thin spots yet.

Watering in done 2-3 times a week during June-August, depending on temps. Deep watering is not really that great since the soil is hard packed and difficult for turf roots to grow deep. Cut height is 3 1/2 inches during the summer.

Good to know. Want to soften the soil and get better water penetration? First test the soil by sticking a screwdriver into it. See how hard it is and how deep it goes. Then spray the yard with any clear shampoo. I like baby shampoo, but you can pick one with a nice fragrance. Spray at 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Follow that up with 1/2 inch of water if you can. Measure that by half-filling some cat food or tuna cans with the sprinklers. If you can't get a half inch without runoff then stop at the first sign of runoff and let that soak in. Come back in 30 minutes to resume. Continue watering and resting until you get the entire half inch. The shampoo will do several good things to the soil affecting both the chemistry and the biology. Continue with your normal watering for 3 weeks and test the soil with the screwdriver again. Normal soil will become soft when it is moist and will harden up when it dries out. It's like a sponge gets soft when moist. The screwdriver will tell you how it's going. If it did not do everything you wanted in 3 weeks, repeat the shampoo. You can repeat as often as you want or need to without fear of hurting anything. You can also double or triple the dose without fear, so there's just about no way to goof this up unless you don't do it. There are some who take this as a challenge and use longer and longer screw drivers. One guy had a limb fall off a tree and bury itself 27 inches into his lawn.

Using a surfactant to soften soil has been a thing only professionals could afford until someone figured out that shampoo would work. You really don't need the expensive chemicals like the pros use. There are lots of testimonials about shampoo on this and other lawn forums. It's easy and will cost you about a dollar, so give it a try. It works in clay soil, too, so there you go. No excuses.

Thanks. Do you anything about a product called BioMax ?

An excerpt from company literature:

BioMax is one of the best, most

efficient ways to improve soil

biology and root environment

BioMax improves soil function in all

cropping systems resulting in better

root and plant health and increased

soil nutrient efficiency.

BioMax is a soil biological stimulator

that increases aerobic bacteria (vs.

anaerobic) and beneficial fungi, such

as mycorrhizae. BioMax contains

specific food sources, micronutrients

and enzymes that stimulate and

increase beneficial bacteria and

fungal activity and populations

You can get the same effect (cheaper) by feeding organically with any grain or off the shelf organic fertilizer.

Hi Morpheus,

Due to time constraints and not wanting to play around with herbicides, I use a lawn care company. They do not offer organics.

Does one get a noticeable difference when feeding organically ?

>>Does one get a noticeable difference when feeding organically ?

Night and day. Organics offer a sustained feed that works with the roots and plant, synthetics simply don't. You can make a synthetic plan work for you, but it does require some effort (and more frequent soil testing, for that matter, as synthetics tend to remove some resources and then don't work as well without them).

Here's a picture to show the effectiveness of organics.

dchall,

I sprayed some milk a couple days ago ... How soon can I apply the shampoo ?

What else can I do to supplement synthetic program put down by lawn care company ? Seaweed extract ? Molasses ?

Shampoo can go with the milk if you want, or any time before or after. There are no limits.

Thanks Morpheus. Can you recommend how I can increase my calcium levels without increasing my pH ? My pH is currently about 6.7 and I do not want to hamper iron availability by the pH drifting up.

Too Late. :-) Iron absorption is already no great shakes at 6.7.

Could I see the copy of your soil test? The answer to your question is, "It depends."

At a pH of 6.7, you can have enough calcium, or your magnesium levels are high, or your sodium levels are way too high and require dispelling. Potassium is unlikely to be the culprit but theoretically possible.

Well, your problems only have some chemical relationship. I didn't mention it in the corrections, but magnesium is probably a slight (very slight) culprit in your soil tightness. There's not much you can do about it except wait for it to dispel itself, although the recommended gypsum might help a little bit.

I mention a few things below, and recommend a few things to put you into the "perfect" groove, but there's really only one major correction to make--phosphorus. So I rode that to the top. The secondary correction, dispelling the sodium (and also raising the calcium a touch) is just below that, but it's really optional.

Phosphorus 116: On the low end, 200 would be the target here. We use starter fertilizer, any brand, to raise this. Just get the cheapest, they're all in the same ballpark. Phosphorus levels have no impact on soil hardness, but do influence overall growth and penetration of grass roots (and growth of the top).

Sodium 2.1%: A bit high, which is riding your pH up a bit. Grasses won't have any trouble tolerating this, although other sodium sensitive plants may start having issues here and there. While sodium will harden a soil, this isn't that excessive. Combine that with...

Calcium 64.4%: Just fine, really, and it doesn't require adjustment. However, a little more won't hurt, and we have to raise this to dump out some of the sodium. We can use gypsum (calcium sulfate) to lower sodium and raise calcium at the same time, and you don't need much. Gypsum is available at most landscape and gardening stores, and I've seen it at Home Depot. Gypsum won't influence your pH--except perhaps, in this case, to drop it a hair as the sodium dispels. Sodium is an extremely alkaline ion.

The rest of the stuff:

ME 7.7: This implies a sandy to silty soil, almost certainly a mix of the two with minimal clay. Adjustments can be in decent quantities, and the soil will tend to stay stable for decent periods of time.

OM 5.2%: Firmly in the Good range, so you don't need to add organic material on any emergency basis. Certainly I'd always mulch mow, mow your fall leaves, and consider organic feeding, but this is not an emergency. Larger amounts of OM will tend to loosen and lighten your soil.

Sulfur 12: Normal, with plenty of margin to accept the gypsum.

Magnesium 19.3%: While a significant excess, this isn't a major problem. It can make soils tight and hard, but your amounts really aren't that excessive. Still, no magnesium is required, and avoiding magnesium sources until this drops back into the normal range is a very good idea. So when lime is required, don't use cheap dolomitic (lime with magnesium in it). Avoid Epsom salts on all plants.

Potassium 4.9%: Perfect. No potassium is required, although you don't have to specifically avoid minor potassium sources. I actually prefer a slight excess of K.

Minor Elements: All fine. I wouldn't mind giving boron a minor tap, but it's so minor I'm not going to bother. I do mention iron below.

Iron 163: Fine, really. This certainly isn't deficient, but if you want to raise this (very slowly) for better color, feed with Milorganite. Over the years it'll slowly lift your iron number.

Recommendations:

September 1: Apply starter fertilizer at bag rate.

September 15: Apply 10 pounds per thousand square feet of gypsum.

October 1: Apply starter fertilizer at bag rate.

Memorial Day, 2016: Apply starter fertilizer at bag rate.

Many, many thanks !

Does the level of magnesium in my lawn soil slow water absorption and make it tough for roots to go deep ? A couple people I spoke to in my area say the area is well known for having clay soil. I am a little surprised to see you say the report implies there is not much clay.

Would the use of milk and baby shampoo help in my case ?

Your lawn must be a showcase lawn ! Do you have a picture to share with us ?

http://thegreengreengrassofhome.blogspot.com/

I've got photos, the good, the bad, and the ugly, of the lawn and gardens going back years.

You could perform the jar test to verify your soil composition, but with that EC there's definitely not that much dense clay there. It's possible you have some of the lighter clays, but even then...I wouldn't bet on it. Plus your low aluminum levels imply that there's very minimal (if any) clay in that soil, although that's far from a perfect correlation depending on the clay type.

Magnesium can and will harden a soil, but your levels really aren't that excessive, they're just a little high (your saturation percentage is still within the normal range, if barely). While I'll guarantee it's having some impact, it's not going to be that extreme.

In this case, I'm thinking try the shampoo, which can go with any of the amendments I've recommended so there's no restrictions. Organic feeding would help as well to raise the number of organisms in the soil that will happily aerate it for you--but again, no emergency as your organic matter levels are just fine.

A couple people I spoke to in my area say the area is well known for
having clay soil.

That couple must live all over the country. Everyone thinks that about their soil. Just hang around here awhile. About 90% to 95% of the people who come here complaining about having a hard (or compacted) clay soil simply have a hard soil. Clay is rare as is true compaction. Hard soil is very common among people who are not on this forum or one or two others where we talk about the benefits of shampoo as a soil surfactant. Praise for the shampoo treatment is also easy to find on these forums. Shampoo works as well to soften soil as RoundUp works to kill plants. But the shampoo won't do any harm and can make the yard smell like apples. The traditional way to soften soil was core aeration. I've never seen that work at all, even slightly, to soften the soil.

I am a little surprised to see you say the report
implies there is not much clay.

Everyone is for the reasons above. There's a strong inclination to believe what your neighbors tell you about the conditions of your area. Science, on the other hand, seems to say that most neighbors don't know what their soil is when it comes to clay.

The factor that makes soil soft is healthy biology. Shampoo followed by water seems to help create that healthy biology in a few weeks.

The shampoo does appear to work in softening the soil. I have uneven results...probably due to the hose end sprayer I used.

My next step is to get a sprayer to get a move even application. For a lawn around 6,000-7,000 sq. ft., should I get a 2 gallon pump sprayer or a backpack sprayer ?

Also, what would be the application rate for existing flower/shrub beds ?

For shampoo, a hose end really does work better. One application isn't enough in a hard soil to soften it up completely.

If you wanted to use a backpack sprayer, I wouldn't object, but would recommend that you irrigate the shampoo in immediately, at least a little bit. For a lawn of that size, plus gardens, the backpack will be more generally useful--although I maintain a backpack plus two one-gallon sprayers. The gallon sprayers contain Round Up and Tenacity, respectively.

Rates are identical for flower/shrub beds and I do that regularly (since I also use this as a minor sticker in the gardens, rates there tend to be rather high, actually).

If you have houseplants, you can wash soapy water through them, then flush the soil thoroughly until there's no more froth (which takes quite a lot of water). For tolerant plants, I then sprinkle a tiny bit of calcitic lime atop the soil and bring them back inside.

Any advice on using bio stimulants for the lawn ? They are generally sold by the case for golf course use. I would like to supplement what my lawn care company puts down.

Increasing root depth and root mass would be nice. I currently have short root depth due to hard soil...hopefully the shampoo will help.

Morpheus,

Can the gypsum and starter fertilizer be applied at the same time ? I started late because of the lack of rain in Sept. and warmer than usual temperature. The lawn took a while to come out of drought stress. Copied below is your recommendation from August:

Recommendations:

September 1: Apply starter fertilizer at bag rate.

September 15: Apply 10 pounds per thousand square feet of gypsum.

October 1: Apply starter fertilizer at bag rate.

Memorial Day, 2016: Apply starter fertilizer at bag rate

The gypsum might theoretically cost you a bit of the nitrogen, depending on the source, but it's going to be minimal in any case. It won't have any impact on the phosphorus, which is what we're trying to lift with the starter.

So I'd say go for it. Certainly, if you can separate the applications by one rainfall or an irrigation, that would be great, but if not, it's not going to be an issue.