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commercialized corn gluten meal used in NEW lawn

6 years ago

I have used this package from HoemDepot

Organic Lawn in a Box 2x4.4lb Liquid Corn Gluten(4-0-0) 1x4.4lb Fish & Seaweed(2-1-3) 3 season Lawn Fertilizer

for my current home. I am moving to a new subdivision, where the houses are just built. i was about to use this corn gluten spray yesterday, yet the instructions say "Used On Established Lawn." Not only is the new lawn not established, but it's also easily pulled off. I was pulling hen bits and some other weeds yesterday, some of the sod came off the same time as I pulled the weeds.

The weeds embedded in the sod are so terribly bad. They are everywhere. I cannot pull weeds everybody, but only once a week, due to traveling distance. I am not sure if I should wait until the lawn is established, because the weeds will multiply in no time. Of course, corn gluten is only for the prevention for the next season. The present weeds need to be rid of too. I am not sure if I should use weed killers now or just hand pull them (but there are a lot)...

Advice, please

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Comments (5)

dchall_san_antonio
6 years ago
Please tell us where you live and what kind of grass you have. Also if you could include a couple photos of your yard, that would help. One photo should show the yard from the middle of your street. Another should show the weeds you have now from a distance of 6 inches.

In general liquid lawn fertilizers are a big waste of money. You can never get the pounds and pounds of nutrients necessary out of a 7 pound gallon of anything. A 2,000 square foot lawn needs 30-40 pounds of corn gluten meal over a period of 4-5 months to be an effective fertilizer. If you did have real liquid corn gluten, you would have to spray it once a month to get a fertilizer effect.

If you think corn gluten meal, even real corn gluten meal, is an effective preemergent herbicide, I think you will be disappointed. A few years ago I tried using it at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet, once a month, beginning in April and ending in October. I had weeds the entire time. If you read the Iowa State research, the best they could do under their test conditions was to get 80% effectiveness. If you do not apply exactly as they did in their tests, you are going to have less than 40% effectiveness.

Is your goal to be 100% organic? If so I wonder why? I fertilize only with organics (alfalfa pellets and ordinary corn meal), but if there is a weed invasion, I will pull out the chemicals once a year. Some weeds seed so rapidly you cannot keep up just by pulling them out. Some weeds spread so fast you cannot keep up with them. As far as I know there is no effective organic weed control that will not also kill the lawn.
jjjjade H
Original Author
6 years ago
thank you dchall. Yeah, I noticed how ineffective this product has been. I used to use the real pelletized corn gluten, yet it's no longer available where i live. This is a product as close as what I can get with the "real one." I bought whole bunch, so just trying to use it up. I guess it does not hurt to put some.

I live in GA, zone 7B with Bermuda grass. I will take pictures tomorrow when I am there.
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Mistina, what are you hoping to accomplish with this mixture? What is it supposed to do? The problem with many of these so called 'natural' or organic home remedies is that they really don't do anything despite being touted for all sorts of magical properties. Corn meal - or even corn gluten meal - really doesn't have significant herbicidal or fungicidal properties. Scientific testing to support any consistent herbicidal properties have not been able tosuccessfully duplicate the results generated by Iowa State University that caused all the hoopla to begin with. And the fungicidal properties simply do not exist. But since CGM is nearly pure protein, it's not at all a bad organic fertilizer (if you overlook the consideration that most feeder corn grown in the US is GMO'd). And Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) provides absolutely NO benefit to the garden unless you have a magnesium deficiency in your soil. If you want to use any of these or similar organic home remedies for weed control or pest or disease suppression, do some research first before you spend money purchasing these products needlessly. There are numerous websites outlining any scientific testing or investigation into the alleged beneficial properties these products may or may not possess. Look in particular for scientific papers or websites with the .edu suffix. Finally, purchasing food grade equivalents of these products at a grocery store will always be more expensive than buying in bulk from a feed lot source.
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Will not work on Centiweed without harming it. You would need many applications of CGM per year at 20 lbs per 1000/ft2. That is 2 pounds of nitrogen per 1000/ft2, double the yearly requirements for each application, multiplied by two or three applications needed for control. Centipede requires horrible, acidic, infertile soil to thrive. The ironic joke is for Centipede fertilizer application is to drag an empty bag of fertilizer around the yard once a year in the spring. The irony is that is just about spot on accurate. Centipede only needs one fertilizer application per year in the spring. Beside CGM IMO does not work very good as a pre-emergence. Great fertilizer, expensive, but poor herbicide.
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Yes it is perfectly safe to use both at the same time. In fact it is safe to use any of the grain type fertilizers at any time, day or night, rain or shine, all together or separately. There are no interactions among any of them that we know about. You can use them in amounts up to the smothering the grass stage (more than 50 pounds per 1,000 square feet). You will get some bad odors if you use more than 30 pounds per 1,000 square feet but if you are using corn and corn gluten meal at 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet, you should be fine. Where it might get dicey is if you used blood meal or fresh manure in large quantities. Personally I would never use fresh manure without full composting first. Blood meal is probably best used by mixing it with grains so that no more than 5 pounds per 1,000 square feet of blood meal goes out. Blood meal can get stinky fast and it can burn your grass roots. It is hard to control very light applications of it so mixing it in with something else is a good idea.
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Thanks for your feedback! I've pretty much decided that it won't be too effective, based on other feedback and some info I found when I Googled it. It seems to take care of a lot of weeds that are typically found in lawns, and there isn't much promotion for it for use in other areas. The area I am working with is open enough that using a spreader would be easy, which is what made me think of CGM.
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dchall_san_antonio
6 years ago
Liquids are especially ineffective with bermuda. Bermuda can use a full dose of dry fertilizer once a month to 6 weeks. Do you have a sodded or seeded variety of bermuda?
functionthenlook
6 years ago
I would just get a lawn service. When we moved into this house the lawn was dandelion heaven among other weeds. We spend too much time and money on products that didn't work. Got a lawn service and by next spring there was no more dandelions or weeds. The only problem is that the lawn is so healthy now we have to mow twice a week during normal summer condition.
jjjjade H
Original Author
6 years ago
I got the pics. However, I actually pulled most of them out last time already, so the lawn does not look as bad now

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