You should, theoretically, be able to use the "Photo" link at the bottom to post.

If that fails, you can upload it to any online photo service and just copy the URL into the message. As long as the image quality is high enough, I can track it down.

(Please don't shrink it too much, I'm visually impaired and there's a limit to how much I can blow it back up to read it).

Thanks for letting me know about the starter! I'll account for it.

Here is a link:

Soil Report

Got it! Give me a bit here...

Overall, this isn't a bad test at all. There are some things that require fixing, some that should be adjusted, and many that are just fine.

It's good you used the starter on her lawn; she needed it! I'll account for the usage in my calculations and recommendations, assuming you went at bag rate (1 pound of P2O5 equivalent).

Sample Depth 3: Four is the normal sampling depth, but that's no big deal. I'll adjust your answers to match a 4" horizon.

Exchange Capacity 7.5: Silty sand, probably. The soil holds a tolerable level of resources and testing every other year will be sufficient to make sure nothing's going awry once it's adjusted.

pH 6.4: Right where it should be, which is because most of the resources that generate pH are right where they should be. I'll want to adjust a few of them a little bit, but will do so in a relatively pH neutral manner.

Organic Matter 4.8%: Nicely in the Good range. Certainly mulch mow, mow all fall leaves, and feed organically if you want, but this is not an emergency. The EC of the soil is high enough that there's no reason to specifically work on organic matter to raise the EC.

Sulfur 11: A nice answer, with plenty of margin for adding sulfate-based chemistry to adjust things. I don't need much margin.

Phosphorus 77 (103 adjusted): Low, and definitely impacting lawn quality. Target here will be 200. To adjust this, we use starter fertilizer, and my recommendations are below.

Calcium 64.6%: Right in optimal range, although with a lower EC soil I'd like to adjust this a tiny bit (that 50 pound [67 pound adjusted] shortage is minor, but...) For this, we use gypsum, which is available at many big box stores, landscape shops, and garden stores. Get the pelletized, it's much easier to handle, if available (and it usually is). My goal here is to nudge the calcium levels closer to 70%.

Magnesium 15.4%: Perfect. No magnesium is required or desired.

Potassium 5.0%: Perfect (the previous test was wrong on this, I think). No potassium is required or desired, and this is absolutely optimal.

Sodium 1.0%: Perfect. Sodium does nothing for a lawn, so very low levels are desirable. The gypsum might reduce this a tiny bit and, if so, great. If not, no problem.

Minor Elements: Boron is deficient. The rest are fine, although if you wish to use Milorganite (high iron), that would probably improve the lawn color a little bit over time.

Boron <0.2: Deficient. We use Milorganite as a carrier and 20 Mule Team Borax as the boron source. You can purchase 20 Mules at the grocery store in the laundry section. In a wheelbarrow or the like, dump the Milo. Spraying very, very lightly with water (I use a spray bottle like the kind people use to damp their clothes when they iron) will help the boron stick. Add the recommended amount of 20 Mule Team Borax and stir, spraying occasionally to get the stuff to stick to the Milo. Then apply over the recommended area. So if going for bag rate Milorganite (1 bag per 2,500 square feet), you'd add 12.5 tablespoons of 20 Mule Team Borax.

Recommendations:

Seeding Time: Starter fertilizer at bag rate (you already did this).

October 15: Starter fertilizer at bag rate.

November 1: Apply 5 tablespoons (not a misprint) of 20 Mule Team Borax per thousand square feet.

April 1, 2016: Apply 5 to 10 pounds of gypsum per thousand square feet (I'd prefer 7, actually, but anything in that range is just fine).

Memorial Day 2016: Starter fertilizer at bag rate.

Labor Day 2016: Starter fertilizer at bag rate.

We were typing at the same time! The older UT test results were OK, the only thing we disagree on is the potassium. In this soil, even 90 lbs/A would have been within tolerable range, although I probably would have recommended a slight enhancement.

The Logan test has it as nose-on perfect in terms of saturation percentage (a little high in terms of soil amounts, which I actually prefer).

A little more history, in case it helps....

When Mom bought the house 3 years ago, the lawn was ok - green and had full coverage, but nothing special - a pretty generic lawn. Over the 2013-2014 winter, most of it died. We had an unusually cold winter for here in TN and we figured maybe that was the problem. Instead of reviving in the spring, it came up in weeds, then a thick crabgrass. In August 2014, the guy Mom hired sprayed with something to kill it all and then used a bobcat to till the whole thing about 6 or so inches deep. He replanted it and and it came up sparsely. It suffered again over last winter and never got better over this spring or summer, although pre-emergent in the spring at least kept most of the weeds out. So that is why we reseeded a few weeks ago.

That makes sense. Lawn, perennial, shrub, and tree damage has been pretty hefty the last two winters (I lost a crepe myrtle I've been lovingly preserving here in Pennsylvania).

While the tilling was a mistake, what's done is done and a year later a good chunk of the problems have already figured themselves out.

When seeding, remember to water at absolute minimum daily--two to three times per day is much better. That'll improve sprout rates.

If I understand you correctly, you saying not to do anything until October 15?

But there are bald areas - some 4-5 feet in diameter, some are long streaks - with little or no grass - where not much, if anything, germinated. Mom has reseeded those areas twice in the last 4 weeks. She watered twice per day (until we had some rain). These are the generally same areas that did not grow last year.

If there is nothing wrong with the soil, what else could be the matter? We are missing our window of opportunity to reseed again.

Starter takes about a month to work in enough to allow for another application, and really, your soil just isn't that bad from a chemical perspective.

Do you have photos of your mother's lawn, including those bare areas? It's possible something else is going on there.

Off the cuff, I'm wondering if a hydrophobic (water-repelling) soil isn't the problem. One thing to try would be to spray the lawn with 2-4 ounces of baby shampoo or cheap clear shampoo (I like Suave, White Rain is fine too) in any convenient amount of water. That'll help break up any hydrophobic areas, but may take several applications once a month to finalize the job.

In the blank areas, one other thing to try is to topdress the seed with peat most (cheap, light, easy to handle) or compost (more expensive, heavier, harder to handle) to about 1/8th inch or 1/4 inch. That'll help retain water on the seed.

Shampoo can go down before or after seeding. If anything, it'll increase germination a tiny bit, and it's a trick I use when starting annual seeds in hydrophobic seeding soil.

I wish I had better photos, but here are a couple that I took last week. The first shows one of the streaks. With the photo taken at an angle across the lawn, you don't get a good feel for it, but the the lawn as a whole is very sparse. The old grass definitely greened up with the fertilizer and it is very long since I haven't been able to cut it for nearly a month now. The second photo is a close-up and you can see the old, long grass, the new small grass coming up OK among it and then the bald area. These areas - large and small - are all over the 4-5000 sf lawn and all of them have been reseeded twice now. I guess I can go get some peat moss and seed again this week. It has now been almost a month since we used the starter fertilizer. I guess I should apply it again over the whole lawn before I reseed these areas again?

Lawn

Close up of lawn

Thanks for your help, Morpheus. I appreciate your time.