Here is a picture of what I describe as strawlike grass (change mower blades twice a

Unibest supposedly has developed their own soil test analysis based on "advanced ion-exchange resin technology" that "simulates plant root uptake."

Their numbers are not similar to any current standard test in use by any other lab. According to Unibest, even their pH readings are .5 lower than other tests. This may be cutting edge technology and the future or it could be totally useless as I have seen no studies concerning its use. Sorry, can't help you.

Thanks yardtractor, I thought it would simplify things by just showing the available nutrients and not the ones "locked up" . Anyways if there is anything you can still offer regarding my results or based off the other pics or info would appreciate it. Thanks

It's not uncommon for brown/dead grass blades to be revealed upon cutting at a reduced height. A close look at picture 2 shows a lot of blade tips that are ripped, torn and split. Common cause is dull blades and/or too slow of engine speed.

Yardtractor I like the underpowered mower theory, one thing that is going good for our lawn is that it is thick and sometimes I feel like I can hear the mower chugging along. I mow the lawn not my husband and have mentioned that. We used to take our mower in and they sharpened blades, this year did that and then mid season got gator blades and put them on upside down mowed and thought these suck then realized our error and reinstalled them.

In my experience, brand new blades are not sharp enough. This is because if they made them sharp, they would be dangerous to handle in stores, both by staff and customers. I sharpen mine immediately after buying them and every couple of months. I sharpen then until they're as sharp as a knife. If you have a lawn with a lot of rocks/sticks/bumps or any other blunt obstacles that the blade could hit, you may not want to go that far because a sharp blade will chip/dent easier. Otherwise, sharpen the blade until you can cut tomatoes with it. You can use an angle grinder, a Dremel with the $15 mower blade attachment or you can take them in to be sharpened. Takes about 5 minutes to do it yourself. Before working on your mower, always always always disconnect the cable from the spark plug.

If I let a Bermuda lawn grow up to 3", then cut it back to 2" I would expect to see brown stems like that. Our usual Bermuda solution is a hard scalp, then come back up a notch. In your case, that would mean taking it down to 3", then letting it grow back up to 3.5" & keeping it there for the rest of the season. I can't say whether or not that method is KBG friendly, though. Results would also depend on your climate, too late in the year & it won't recover.

It also looks like a nice high Magnesium level, which is known to slow down decay of organic matter. It doesn't look thatchy, but maybe that's keeping the brown stems around longer than you want? I have a lot of Mg in my soil as well & I have basically stopped mulching. I bag now.

I also agree that your mower may not be in top shape, as it shouldn't have any issues cutting through that. Check the oil, filter & plug to see if it's running right--Parts are cheap. The sharpest blade won't matter if your mower is running half speed.

Thanks j4c11 and reeljake for all the tips, will get blades sharpened and check the mower oil filter and plug. Also interesting info regarding the high magnesium level, wonder how it got so high or if its do to our practices or the fill soil was high. I'm not sure but maybe will try mowing around 3.5 unless get into drought conditions. I'm still interested if anyone has any interpretations from our test results and/or recommendations.

I thought it would simplify things by just showing the available nutrients and not the ones "locked up"

That is the goal of all soil testing methods and the reason why different methods are employed for different soil conditions. Resin technology sounds promising and its been around since at least the 90s. However, looking at a few of the phosphorous extraction studies (so, few that I wouldn't say the studies are conclusive), Resin technology appears to be only slightly more accurate in P extraction than other methods and the improvement is not great enough to result in better determination of sufficiency levels. Secondly, there is little in the way of studies using resin technology for accurately extracting other nutrients, but it is opined that accurate results would require a "filter" or membrane to prevent errors due to cation exchange interactions.

There should be substantial and verifiable research supporting the accuracy of a method before it is employed. If there is, I'm not aware of it.

Once an extraction method is determined reliable, there is a procedure developed to insure accuracy and repeatability of results. Nearly all labs will cite and verify that they employ the recommended test procedure. Unibest cites neither research supporting their method or a procedure that they employ.

Once a method is shown to be accurate and a procedure has been developed, field studies are often conducted to correlate a relationship between the test results and soil/crop sufficiency levels to develop recommended nutrient adjustments. Although Unibest provides "optimal levels", they cite no field studies (or anything else) supporting how these levels were determined or their accuracy.

I'm still interested if anyone has any interpretations from our test results and/or recommendations.

For the reasons above, there is no basis to confidently rely on or employ Unibest test reports. I'm not saying that their tests are unreliable. I am saying that there isn't enough information made available to make a determination.

What is your reason for being confident in Unibest? Also, just being nosy, why/how did you select Unibest?

Yardtractor

i appreciate your expertise regarding the technology behind the test. I have yellow grass in the fall and before throwing down something I thought that doing a soil test would help navigate. I looked online and bought a test and now see that I'm high on magnesium and maganese, low on nitrogen and potassium and my ph is a tad high so I have more information then I did before. I thought we could shoot around some theories as to maybe what's going on (like got a response that high mg slows down decay of om-i found that interesting). I'm really into gardening and not super interested in differences of tests so thanks and I hope that explains things better

Simplescapes,

I hope you don't think I'm being dismissive or trying to give you a hard time. I wanted you to understand why people might be hesitant to advise you based on that test. Employing a good soil test is always a good idea when diagnosing plant and soil issues.

Manganese wont become toxic unless soil pH is lower than 5.5.It's not likely to be causing issues in most cases.

Magnesium is seldom toxic. So its very unlikely that Magnesium is causing you any problems although excesses can cause hard/tight soil conditions and impede water penetration. Minimum levels of 50ppm (based on Melich tests) are the bare minimum recommended for acceptable plant growth.

pH has the biggest influence on plant health. pH above 7.5 will often create some nutrient deficiencies. One in particular is iron and iron deficiency exhibits as light green/yellow leaf color. Keeping in mind that Unibest states that their pH results are about .5 lower than standard pH testing, your 7.23 results might really be 7.73. pH that alkaline very likely is causing your light green/yellow grass issues. At least in part. Switching to Milorganite (it contains iron) as your warm season fertilizer should create dramatic results.

Good luck.

Yardtractor

thanks again for the info, I know people are always taking about liming the soil when they have acidic soils and read it's hard to change an alkaline soil. How come don't hear much about adding sulfur to lower my ph?

What if I topdressed lawn in peatmoss? I know people talk about topdressing with compost, I'll be honest we have a huge yard and that seems like a monumental task hence why I'm spraying the compost tea. Next year also planning on aerating and dethatching so again if anyone has any tips/tricks would love to hear them. We built our house and for the past 4-5 years have DIY most landscape projects including the lawn and now that most of the other projects are done can focus my energy a little to the lawn. I live in a 22 house community and really only 3 households take care of their own lawns. I like it and have had a bit of help just this year with 3 treatments but will be on my own next year again.

Sulfur is very harsh to both microbial life and the plant. Specialized microbes produce sulfuric acid using the Sulfur. This only occurs when microbial life is active (warm temps) and will continue through the summer when grass is already being stressed. Because the Sulfur is applied to the soil surface, the top layer of soil becomes very acidic before change occurs deeper. A lot of chance for damage.

As a rough example: to drop from pH 7.8 to around 7 (assuming a soil calcium content of about 1.5%) would take around 130lbs of Sulfur/k. You shouldn't apply more than 10lbs per year, so that's 12 years. Peat is about 10% as acidifying as Sulfur so about 1300lbs of peat/k would be needed. And calculations never seem to work as efficiently when dealing with soil. The best solution is to fertilize with ammonium sulfate, sulfur coated urea or straight Urea fertilizers and let the fertilizer and nature lower the pH over time.

Have you notice a deepening of the green color a week or so after applying Milo?Do you winterize? With what?

I looked at your close-up again and enlarged it. Without a doubt your mower is hacking the heck out of the blades, but in the upper right corner there is a wide blade with some dark lesions (spots) and there are some white spots on a vew blades throughout. It's a bit late for most diseases, but based on the lesions, disease can't be ruled out. I'm lousy at disease and weed Id, Hopefully someone can help you out or try this.

Yardtractor good info on the sulfur-thanks. Temps have been in the low 50's and other night was 30 degrees, next Sunday high of 37 so we are plunging. I have noticed some greening, (but those straw stems are always there no matter what I do so next time I mowed they are there in the mix) like the other poster said maybe the high mg is preventing them from decaying. So the non strawlike dead grass is nice and green. I thought putting down the milorganite was kinda winterizing so other than that we didn't do anything. I mowed yesterday and tried pushing up the throttle, usually I put it in the notch on our riding mower, (read some info that you should mow "open throttle" and other poster said could be our engine speed) mowed at 3.25, didn't leave any piles/clumps of grass behind (during summer this occurs). I know our blades were once sharpened and then we replaced them around August that picture was taken October 24th (one month after last professional app of feet/herb). My husband said the mower was taken in in spring where they do a oilchange and change filter plugs and sharpen blades etc... I was thinking I'd like one of those zero turns anyways cause we have a huge yard with a ton of turns

So I was thinking there was fungus or sodwebworm damage, since this yellowing out has occurred for the past 3 years was wondering when is the optimum time to apply a funcide- I know suppose to apply before the outbreak. Saw someone on another post with similar pics and grass say was summerpatch.

Maybe someone with more experience with fungicides than I will comment. I do notice that in that new close up, although a bit out of focus, the leaves seem to have a nice clean cut. Are you using different mowers in different areas (like a walk behind to trim?) or is it possible you are driving the rider at near top-speed on open areas of the lawn? I've noticed that when I try to cut with my rider at faster than a walking pace, that the cut suffers.

Yardtractor, I only use a different mower in a fenced in area not pictured however mowing around the beds and other edges I go very slow because of all the twists and turns, and thinking about it when doing the main area go much faster. I will for sure slow down there, should I place the throttle in the notched area on lower or try pushing it up a tad? Is that what people mean by running it open throttle? I guess I'm trying to make the blades run the fastest? I also have a mulching kit underneath which we scraped clean and grass groomer brush attached other than that John Deere 130 I think. In previous posts I mentioned how all edges around our beds and walls and large area in far backyard (was indisturbed during construction) is soild green no straw. Since area in backyard is green (undisturbed soil) I think we have an issue either with our backfill or fungus is attacking areas that are not as healthy in backfill areas. very first picture is of backyard, on the left shows area green no yellowing nothing was touched there during construction, on right was where grading occurred and see yellow, either fungus or soil conditions. I water an inch a week, have a rain gauge and manually control our irrigation based on rainfall and "hotter" areas of yard, mow high(maybe too high) don't water at night or afternoon, use soybean meal and dimension and milorganite, had lawn co do apps July, aug and September, lawn looked great all year then late September October hit and I start mowing below 4 and I begin to see the damage. A neighbor down the road used the exact lawn seed from the same "feed store" type place and his lawn is green no straw.

On the full throttle question: play it by ear. Increase the throttle until you don't audibly hear any more increase in engine speed. When you go past the point of maximum full throttle, you will hear the engine start to slow down again as you are entering the choke mode on most riders.

The blades spin at full speed on a mower like yours, all you control is ground speed & you should definitely slow it down. Those torn blades & clumping are symptoms of going too fast. Especially while you're dropping the height, slow & steady is the method. If you see clumps while mulching you're going too fast.

I can't imagine you have fungus this time of year, your temps are pretty low. That other thread was coincident with a heat wave a while back, so the same advice won't apply to your situation.

My advice, slow down, raise your blade back up a notch until next year. Over the winter, send a few hunks of soil over to Logan labs or whoever yardtractor prefers so he can read your test for you & get you on the right track for soil amendments next spring.

It would be worth checking the belts and belt routing as well to make sure there's no slippage.

J4c11 interesting I asked them to look at the belts this spring and said they are fine but too me look loose, then when we replaced the blades mid season my husband and I tried reading from manual if there was a way to tighten the belts when we put the deck back on, we are not very handy but maybe I should send a pic, this was something that came to mind for me, should they be like a guitar string taught? How much slackage?

Not quite like a guitar string. With the belt on, if you grab both sides of the belt with your hand and squeeze, you should have about one inch of "play". Check the manual and confirm the routing is correct as well.

So decided to get upclose and personal, the straw like grass was kinda more like a sheath around the green grass that I could pull away to reveal the green blade. Idk. I will check the mower belts later and report back and I'm sure I'll have more questions.

What is that? Doesn't look like fescue and it seems to be missing the mid-vein specific to bluegrass too.

Damn russians, messed with our election and now they're messing with our lawns too!? :-)

J4c11 oh geese that's funny my typing is all around bad, I mean KBG

Geeze not geese