in this setting.. they are NOT talking about bagged compost.. aka manure ... this composted product is useless for this job .... they are talking about what is freshly scooped out of the barn which is high in urea [which is the old fashioned basis of high nitro fert . the NATURAL version... rather then the chem version] .... it comes out of a different part of the animal ... lol ... it is the raw product ... and by the time you get it delivered ... cost might be prohibitive ... in the alternative.... a high N fert would be 49-0-0 .... sold in places like tractor supply.. or any high end nursery ... but even that.. the key to rotting wood.. is water ... the nitro is barely relevant ... if you cant keep the wood wet ... in my sand.... it can take a decade... for a stump to rot naturally ... on 5 acres... i have no hurry on removal ... but have added the nitro to huge wood chips piles.. to speed decomposition ... the problem with my sand.. is that it is bone dry for about half of the year.. when it isnt frozen solid in MI ... in other words.. my rotting season is short ... i kill ALL my stumps with generic RU ... but you dont want to hear about that ... i think it is speculative to try to kill a tree with the nitro .. not saying it cant be done... but i dont know how it can be accomplished ... many suggest a trees root system is twice as large as what you see above ... and if thats the case ... one might ask ... where is the best place to apply such ... and what you will end up doing to the soil if in fact you do kill the tree ... it MIGHT end up.. a scorched earth ... think romans and carthage ... [boy thats obscure.. lol] all that said.. we also dont know what tree ... if its a suckering tree ... juicing it with fert.. might only result in you ending up with hundreds of them... all over the place ... your base problem.. is not that you want to save money ... in my reading.. the issue is you want it done FAST .. and wood simply.. does NOT ... rot fast ... no matter what you do ... to speed wood rotting.. you chip it into the smallest possible format... thereby increasing surface area ... and you dont want to do that ... many answers here are extremely optimistic .... IMHO .... again.. in my sand.. i would say... 7 to 15 years ... at least ... and the harder the wood.. the longer it takes ... i have no idea.. why you posted this in a design forum .... you might want to try other forums .... good luck

Zach, you are not the first person to write in here with a lawn that looks like garbage. I've been reading here for 10 years and have been a moderator on three other internet lawn forums since 2003. Logan Labs has emerged as the premier soil test lab in the country. It stands head and shoulders above the second best professional lab in Texas. The same test that LL charges $20 for would cost $100 at the Texas lab. These pro labs serve farms and orchards around the world. With their high volume they can cut their prices. Only one of the university tests (U Mass) even offers what the pro labs offer. The university tests give you pH and the soil macro nutrients. The pro labs give you that plus buffered pH, micro nutrients, CEC, the salt components and their ratios. There are a lot more people who write back to say, "I should have gone to Logan Labs the first time," than those who write in to say, "I'm really glad I went with my local county extension service." Seriously, tilling is a huge mistake. It will not do what you want and it will bring new seeds to the surface to sprout. It will take 3 full years to settle and in the end it will be very bumpy. If you want to freshen your soil, the best thing you can do is cover it in 2 inches of shredded tree (or chipped tree) mulch for a month or two. By covering it with mulch it holds the soil moisture more constant and allows the soil fungi to multiply inn population. The beneficial fungi are what make soil healthy. Bacteria is a secondary player along with protozoa and microarthropods. Earthworms are nice but even they could not survive without healthy fungi. Once you get the mulch down, the improvement happens in a huge hurry. Have you ever seen how fast a bag of bread can turn into a bag of green mold? That's how fast it can happen in the soil. However I would argue that you don't need to do that. You can get the same effect by spraying any clear shampoo on the soil at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Do that twice separated by 3 weeks and your soil will improve surprisingly well. Kill the weeds by spot spraying with Weed-B-Gone. The way you remove all the old grass is with a tool called a verticutter, power rake, slit seeder, or any (rented) tool with vertically rotating blades. You can adjust it so it just touches the soil. It will take all the plants out. Rake or blow the old grass away before seeding. Seed directly onto that soil and roll the seed down with a rented roller.

Well I attacked my first tree stump today. The very first time I tried to get the shovel in the ground I immediately hit tree stump no more than 2" down. No wonder i couldn't keep the grass alive there. I uncovered the whole stump then went at it with a chainsaw and axe. 6 hours later, it's mostly removed. I was so physically exhausted I left some stump about 8-12" down. I'm probably going to regret that decision but I had had enough. I spread some Milorganite over it and filled with premium topsoil. I saw plenty of maggots so I assume that means the stump is already rotting down there. Saturday is a high of 90 so I'll seed on Sunday when temps drop to the upper 70s. The good news is this tree blew over in Hurricane Sandy before I owned the house, which is why the stump was there. I KNOW the guys I had cut the remaining trees down were grinding stumps so I'm going to assume they did their job properly and my grass problems were due to sawdust left in the holes. Instead of digging them out I now plan to scalp the exist grass with a weedwacker, level with topsoil (those spots are already sunken down a couple inches), and overseed....and make sure I apply extra milorganite in the future. Good plan?

I had the same gameplan back in 2006 when a July storm took down three Black Locusts. I went cheap and had the tree service leave the stumps, planning on trying the high N method. Urea was available at the nearby Hummerts so I thought I had it covered. Fortunately I tried drilling the holes before I bought the fertilizer. I tried two different drill bits and never got more than a 1/2" deep hole. I know Black Locust is known for being a very durable wood so maybe it was the stumps or maybe it was me. Six years later and the stumps are still there, one covered with ivy and euonymous and the other two partially covered with zoysia. So I'd suggest trying to drill the holes first before you spend money on the fertilzer.