Welcome to the states! Milorganite is not a chemical fertilizer made from chemicals like ammonium nitrate, potassium sulfate, etc. It is a product made from sewage sludge treated with heat to sterilize it. From a safety stand point, it is safe to use. Since it contains nothing but treated organic byproducts, it has the same ingredients as many other organic garden materials. But in the eyes of the USDA, it is not suitable for use in a certified organic program because the original source is human waste rather than cattle, hog, horse, chicken, bat, or sheep waste. Most homeowner lawn care takers are not on a USDA certified organic program and can use Milorganite freely. Whether you want to or not depends on your own personal level of "ick" associated with the use of human waste. Whether it has the best bang for your buck depends on the cost of several other commodities. Milorganite prices their product competitively with their commercially bagged organic fertilizer competitors like Espoma, Medina, and some others. However, in the background there is another circle of non commercially bagged organic fertilizers. These are the grains used primarily for animal feed. They include corn, soybean, alfalfa, cottonseed, and sometimes wheat, milo/sorghum, rye, rapeseed, and flax (depending on where you live). These are all commodities and fluctuate in price not according to commercially bagged fertilizer prices but instead according to worldwide market for human and livestock food. When corn is expensive, as it was for the past two years, then corn was not the best product for the money. When corn was practically free in the early 2000s, it was a great organic fertilizer. Back then 50 pounds of corn meal was $3. Last year it was $23. But at the same time last year alfalfa held on at $12 per bag - the same price for about 10 years now. Four acres is a lot of fertilizer. If my calculator is working right, that's about 70 bags of alfalfa or anything else at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. $850 is a lot of hobby money. You might consider installing more of a prairie grass on 3.9 acres and concentrating your organic approach on the 0.1 acre right adjacent to your house. Four acres is a lot of grass...period. I like lawns but really?! Four acres?? Have you thought of converting a lot of it to any of these alternatives to grass arbors (for vines) bamboo bee keeping butterfly garden decks edibles (veggies) fences fountains fragrance garden gazebo greenhouse hedges herb garden hot tubs hummingbird garden Japanese garden moon garden (plants and lights for night time viewing) orchard other groundcovers out buildings (like sheds) outdoor theater parcours (exercise stations) patios ponds pools putting green rock garden rolling hills rose garden sitting or reading area statuary topiary tulip garden walkway walls wildflowers Zen garden

Or alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). Here is a picture of mrmumbles lawn back in 2011. He took the picture in June, about a month after tossing a handful of alfalfa pellets into his zoysia lawn. You can clearly see the improved color, density, and growth. Alfalfa pellets are available at any feed store. Cost should be around $12 for a brown, 50-pound bag. Cost is a dollar more for 10 pounds less if it says Purina or anything else on it. Application rate is 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet for most all organic fertilizers. Milorganite is an exception. Read the bag. If you apply too much, no problem. A guy on another forum experimented with applying 50 pounds per 1,000 square feet every week all season long. He had the greatest lawn ever.

I'm fairly new to organic lawn care but have had great sucess so far. You really can't over fertilize a lawn with organic products like that. I'd lay down a generous amount of a high protein meal like cottenseed meal. (41% Protein and some Phosphorous): Then broadcast dried molasses which will stimulate chlorophyll formation in the leaves. The molasses will also give instant food to the microbes which break down complex organic compounds into fertilizer. (40% Protein, Amino Acids) : I would also apply some cracked or chopped corn which adds a little more nitrogen to your lawn but works as a slow-release natural funguscide/disease preventer. (4% Protein and Fungicide) : Of course if you have plenty of CGM I wouldn't hesitate putting that down too. You won't get the most of it's preemergent properties at this time of the season but it's loaded with protein.

I can get a 50# bag of alfalfa pellets at a feed & grain store for between $10 and $11. Great stuff, especially in a combined program of topdressing with my free home made compost on banks and places where the lawn was getting a little thin. Didn't have the soil tested to prove anything out, but just looking at the grass on the banks and lawn I can see a real improvement. I doubt you can get 50# of a commercial organic fertilizer anywhere near as inexpensively as the alfalfa pellets. Or one that might work any better, for that matter.