You provided a lot of info. Thanks. Generally I think you have a watering problem, because disease is not normal and neither is nutsedge.

• Inconsistent areas of light green/yellowish from diseases. Inconsistent with a sprinkler coverage issue.

From reading the rest of your post, you seem to have done some reading on the forum. That's good. You may have seen the recommendations for watering deeply and infrequently. With watering in mind, what is your watering schedule? How often and for how long do you water? Have you done the can test to time how long it takes to get 1 inch of water? Can you post a picture of the back and front lawns?

• Clay soil with compost rototilled in then 2-3in top soil added before sod

Rototilling was a mistake as was adding the compost to the tillage. Compost works best when applied on top of the grass. You've probably read that here before, also, so I won't dwell on it. Adding topsoil was a mistake, because it changes your drainage. It sounds like you have slope enough to deal with it. Did the extra 2 inches create any dams where water backs up against the house in the rain? I would not beat myself up about the rototilling and topsoil. These practices have become so popular they are practically normal. But as far as "best practices," these are not that.

• open dirt areas from dog pee spots

Add a heaping handful of table sugar to each of the dog pee spots. The sugar changes the soil biology enough to counteract the effect of too much urine at one time. Are you already using organic fertilizer? If so, how many times?

• Core aerate - both lawns this month (once temps come down since it is still 95 today) and I will rake up the plugs (my dog will probably try to eat them and I want the new product to fill the holes instead of the same soil returning

Why do you want to core aerate? What results are you expecting to see?

• HumiChar - spread after aeration 5lbs / 1000 sqft

Why do you want to use HumiChar? What results are you expecting to see?

• Organic matter - spread Dumor poultry feed crumbles after aeration 20 lbs / 1000 sqft

First of all you have a commendable amount of organic matter already. Secondly, I had never heard of Dumor poultry feed crumbles. At the Tractor Supply price of $14 for 50 pounds, that is a steal as a 16% protein, organic fertilizer. You will not need your PGF or seed starter fertilizers if you use Dumor. Apply at 15 pounds per 1,000, not 20 pounds. You can go 20 (or 30, or 40) if you want to, but 15 is definitely adequate.

• Compost - light application

Again, why? It is hard to apply, expensive, and works a whole lot worse than the Dumor will work for you. It takes 700 pounds of compost to equal what 15 pounds of Dumor can do.

• Overseed - 4-8 lbs / 1000 sqft

For others reading this, October is not too late to seed fescue in Tustin, CA.

• Fertilizer - PGF Complete 16-4-8 or Starter 15-15-15 Marathon Sod & Seed Starter?

You won't need this extra fertilizer after using the Dumor, above. The Dumor will take 3 weeks to see the effect, so it can be applied the same day as you do the overseeding.

Okay so lets talk about watering and disease. It is crazy to have 1, 2, or 3 different diseases in a SoCal lawn in the summer. Furthermore, nutgrass/nutsedge is a swamp type grass that only thrives in soggy soil. (I'm taking your word that it is nutgrass and not green kyllinga, a near visual twin to nutgrass but thrives in drought conditions). So I'm going out on a limb to guess that you are watering your lawn every day and watering so much that it takes more than a day to dry out. I realize that all your neighbors, and all the sprinkler installers, and all the magazine articles tell you to water every day; but that's just wrong. In Tustin you should be deep watering more like once every 2 weeks in the summer with the possible exception of last week's heat wave. Extending the drying period gives the soil plenty of time to dry out, discourages weeds, discourages nutgrass from taking over, and should keep all the diseases away.

You did not mention mowing height. Are you mowing at the mower's highest setting? Marathon varieties are supposedly dwarf, but that just means they grow slowly. They can still be mowed tall.

Thank you very much for the detailed response! I knew I was forgetting information...watering duh! I should have stated before but I will now that I am still very new to lawn care. I have done lots of reading from many sources trying to learn and get a decent understanding of what makes sense. I am in no way an expert or hard headed about any of this. I am just here to try to understand my particular situation better after reading so much "general" information that is out there.

Watering/Disease

I have not done a can test on either lawn. I have 40psi regulated spray bodies with .41in/hr rate nozzles in the back. The front is a bit more unknown. I have a Rachio controller for both front and back. I am pretty sure that the diseases are completely my fault for poor watering practices. I watered too frequently and for too long for the first couple months maybe. Then I fertilized with a starter fertilizer when it was too hot which caused stress (I did it under poor recommendation because the roots weren't growing deep which was likely due to the frequent shallow watering). Then I started switching to less frequent and longer watering times. Although I think another problem was that it was stressed from heat and fertilizer and the roots weren't deep enough yet to deal with the heat and infrequent watering. All this led to the diseases I am seeing. All of this I am talking about the back lawn. The front lawn due to afternoon sun and the slope although watered too frequently was able to still dry out better between waterings. This has been a hot summer and with my cool season grass in its summer decline of growing it did not make sense to me to think that I could change my watering habits by much when the roots would not be growing to accommodate the change. My plan is to make the change to once/ week watering or less (except when it is 95+) over this fall/winter.

Soil

We had 40 yds of soil removed from our back yard which stripped the top 4-8in of soil. This was sloped towards our house. Our very poorly draining clay soil lead to the accumulation of water which created a moat around the house. We have since installed drains at the bottom of the now 1% sloped lawn. The compost was rototilled in to replace some of the organic matter that was lost and help with breaking up the clay (only thing I have found to actually help with clay without drawbacks like others). The topsoil was used to get some loamy soil instead of straight clay. This was accounted for when soil was removed. Although it doesn't matter at this point, what do you consider to the best practice that you mention if this is not?

Dog pee spots

When are you saying to add this sugar? Right after our dog pees, when its turning yellow or when its completely dead and grass is removed? Adding sugar sounds like our dog will just trying to eat the dirt or grass with sugar on it and great an ant problem spot. I am hesitant to do this, but would like to know more of what the intended outcome is.

Fertilizer

I have not used an organic fertilizer yet. I have not used any fertilizer because it have been summer and it has been stressed, but realizing that organic wouldn't have been an issue and likely good. Obviously from the soil analysis there is major lack of nitrogen.

Core aeration

The intention is to open up and get some oxygen to the roots, improve lawn health, get those products mentioned into the soil and have some open spots for the new seed on top.

HumiChar

I aim to improve lawn health, improve the clay soil fertility and add humic acid which I have read can potentially help buffer the dog pee burn spots. Although I don't expect it to be a miracle, if it helps at all I will be happy. If it doesn't, oh well I already bought the product and have it to use.

Organic Matter

Yes, that is the product I got from Tractor Supply. I am glad you think that was a good choice. Ok great, I will likely apply it in the 15-20lb range at first then do some repeat applications but not too heavy instead of dumping 40lb at once for instance.

Compost

I probably should have said topper soil instead. I have a couple bags of TurfMAX soil that I wanted to use as a light spread over the lawn before spreading the seed.

Overseeding

I sure would hope its not too late because it was still 95 yesterday! Temps are finally looking to come down in a week and hopefully stay down now.

Seed Starter Fertilizer

My soil analysis shows high levels of Phosphorus, but isn't it usually bound up in the soil and not usable by the grass and therefore it is beneficial for root development to apply a starter fertilizer? I don't want to go crazy with it, but I don't know how much is available and how much is contained in Dumor feed. I could do a half amount application of PGF complete since it is a lighter fertilizer to begin with. Reading this I am inclined to want to do just that unless you tell me that it will be harmful. "Phosphorus is included in starter fertilizer primarily to enhance root development. Some research shows little influence of phosphorus on turf establishment in soils containing adequate to high levels of soil-test phosphorus; whereas other studies show benefits even when phosphorus levels are adequate. Generally, developing seedlings growing in compact soils during cold temperature periods are thought to benefit more from phosphorus in starter fertilizer"

Diseases/Weeds

Yes, I believe it is nutsedge and actually purple nutsedge since I recently found one with seeds. I does not look like kyllinga. That makes sense since the watering habits were so bad. Also, I have noticed it is in other neighbors lawns in my neighborhood and the next one over. Using Tenacity with surfactant has bleached them but not killed them unfortunately. I waited too long and now they are well established in the front lawn (only). I will be trying Dismiss herbicide next (not until the new seed is established though). While I could see how watering every 2 weeks could work for a warm season grass that is better suited for this climate, I am sorry but I have a very hard time being confident in anything less than once per week of 1-1.5in (rain or irrigation) for cool season grass in this area.

Mowing

We have a gardener mow the front and I mow the back with our own mower to hopefully help stop the spread of some weeds between the two and neighbors. The intent is to get the front weeds taken care of then only use our mower. Mowing height is 2.5-3in front (Marathon II) and 3-3.5 in the back (Marathon I) shorter in winter longer in summer.

My last comment is that I am trying to throw everything I can at it this month (although I know this isn't an overnight process) because I will be very busy come November with the arrival of our first child.

Thanks again for the feedback!

ETA: I didn't ID the test: First test on the list!

I did see your request to read your soil test and I'd be happy to. I don't really know how much to trust this test as it's not one I'm familiar with, so I tend to take these with a grain of salt. Almost literally when dealing with sodium values...

Working under the assumption that they got the basics right, you would have a fairly heavy soil at nearly 18 EC. I think they're overestimating that due to the high calcium levels, but not by much (running an acetate test might give a bit of a different answer, but it's not worth doing in this particular instance as this lab would probably charge you for that. Others...well, one that I'm thinking of...will do it free in cases like this).

I'm mentally turning the EC down to 12.

That doesn't impact the fact that your organic matter levels are good. Certainly mulch mow, mow in your "fall" leaves, feed organically if you want, and so on. But this is a good number.

I'm going to skip some things because I can't speak to accuracy so there's no real reason to discuss them specifically.

I'll disagree with adding any phosphorus (P, second number on the bag) because the soil's already showing as fairly high in it, and it's locked fairly well at your higher pH (high level of calcium and magnesium in the soil) anyway. There's simply no reason to do so. Any that gets added will also lock tight in the soil. Better to save the money. New seed won't require any as the seed provides it, and established seed will grab what it can when it becomes available during the brief period when it's available. That's the way it works.

Potassium (K, the third number on the bag) is a slightly different story. I'm going to call this one optional, and I'm definitely not going to say you need 3.5 pounds equivalency of potassium in the bag due to binding issues in the soil. Personally, I'd get potassium sulfate (call landscape stores, they'll order it for you!) or try to get something like 20-0-20 or 10-0-10 at the store (something with no phosphorus, which is going to be tougher). This isn't to be bothered with until after the overseeding, so I'm not sure of the scheduling. Next year, probably. If you slip and apply too little, add a little more, or just do it a week or so later. If you do too much, hold off a bit longer for the next application. This is not an exact science, and a bit extra won't do damage.

Nitrogen levels I don't care about. Mine are perpetually low. I'd challenge you to look at my lawn and tell me it's nitrogen-short. Feed normally, as David described.

Recommendations:

May 2021: Apply 2 pounds per thousand square feet of potassium sulfate whenever handy.

September 2021: Apply 2 pounds per thousand square feet of potassium sulfate whenever handy.

October 2021: Apply 2 pounds per thousand square feet of potassium sulfate whenever handy.

Thanks for finding this morph. I was about to put out an emergency bulletin ;-)

Tustin is west of the coastal range of mountains in Southern California and at low elevation, so they are in an area extremely influenced by the 2 o'clock sea breeze from the Pacific Ocean. The water temp ranges from the low 60s to the low 70s year round, so there are probably times in the summer when they need a light jacket for wind chill and humidity. This area is a little warmer than the PNW where Gardengal says you can seed throughout most of the growing season without fear of too much heat stress.

Looking at the pictures and reading your comments/questions tells a story. You have a lawn that 90% of SoCalians would be happy/thrilled to have. What you want is a tune up and something to take the fear of impending disaster away. You might look on this forum for user name Lisa. She has a picture perfect lawn in Pittsburgh which she worries and complains about all the time. We try to get her to chill. She overwaters and complains about disease. Well??? One comes with the other.

For the lawn care noob, here are some basics for watering, mowing, and fertilizing. These are the three pillars and they are in order of importance. Proper watering is about 75% of lawn care. Mowing is another 20% and fertilizer is the last 5% (all my opinion after reading these forums for nearly 2 decades). I'm sure morph has different opinions.

Watering: Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means 1 inch all at one time. Rachio sprinkler timers are not all that helpful, because they think they know more than you do. Spreading out the watering with 1/7-inch every day is not the right way to water. By watering deeply and then letting the ground dry out, the plant roots will grow longer to reach the moisture deeper in the soil. Deeper water reservoirs evaporate slower and keep the soil cooler longer. And the deeper roots can accumulate nutrients from deeper in the soil. When you water daily the roots do not develop depth and can demineralize the soil right at the surface requiring more fertilizer. Infrequently means you let the soil dry out between watering. Now this deep and infrequent process that I'm talking about came from a lawn care professional in Phoenix who I argued with for several weeks until he convinced me I was wrong about daily watering. It is very easy to overthink watering frequency, and you have a good start at that. Many factors go into frequency including temperature, humidity, wind speed/direction, soil type, grass type, cloud cover, tree shade, mowing height, and many more. What all that boils down to is that air temperature predominates everything with adjustments made for humidity. So as a starting point for anyone, here's my suggestion. For air temps (high temp for the day) below 70, deep water once per month. For temps from 70 to 80, water once every 3 weeks. For temps from 80 to 90 water once every 2 weeks. For temps from 90 to 100 water once per week. For temps from 100 to 105, water every 5 days. For temps from 105 to 110, water every 3 days. If you have a lawn used to daily watering (with short little roots) you cannot go cold turkey and jump to watering every 3 weeks. Gradually work your way up to that giving the roots time to grow out. And this is a starting point, but in no case should you be watering every day.

Mowing: Generally, mulch mow at the mower's highest setting, once per week, unless you have bermuda, creeping bentgrass, or centipede. Those should be mowed at the mower's lowest setting. Don't to the UCR website go get the mowing height recommendations for the various fescues, bluegrasses, and rye grasses. There is no particular difference between 2.032078560 inches and 3 inches. They make it sound important. It's not. Taller grass grows deeper roots. That is important. Taller grass fights off weeds better by providing too much shade on the ground for weed seeds to take root.

Fertilizing: In general, the first fertilizer of the year comes in late spring. Memorial Day is easy to remember. Don't get hung up on TV advertising for fertilizers and seeds in the spring. They are selling products. The more they can get you to do things wrong, the more products they sell. IF you decide to fertilize in the early spring, you will have to fertilize again in late spring anyway because of the way grass plants use excess nutrients. Second fertilizer drop is late summer. Labor Day is a good reminder day. Last fertilizer drop is late in the season when the grass has stopped growing but before the first frost. I lived in Riverside for 20 years and we got frost. I never cared much about it, so I don't know if Tustin gets frost or not. But after the grass stops growing, then hit it with a high nitrogen, fast release fertilizer. Uncoated urea is good. The idea is to pump nitrogen to the roots after the plant has shut down. Stuff does happen in the soil and the plant during the winter even though the plant is not growing, so your lawn should be one of the first to awaken in the spring. I would strongly suggest you make one or more of your fertilizer applications with organics to keep your soil microbes tuned up. Or maybe better yet, add the organics in October.

That's all there should be. No mention of core aeration, dethatching, herbicide, fungicide, or insecticide. If you are doing the Big 3 right, you should not have problems. But since you are already convinced of the need for some of those, I'll mention some things.

You know what core aeration is. At best the aerator will pull a few thousand plugs out of the soil and open up huge holes where water and other stuff can accumulate. I like the water catchment part, but there is a better way to deal with that. Golf courses have pioneered the idea of using surfactants to cure some of their ills. One of the side benefits of the surfactant is that it allows water to penetrate deeply into the soil. Morpheuspa and others have pioneered the use of surfactants on homeowner soils. It works. I was a holdout on that, too. I was a skeptic until I realized that I had the equipment and the soap and it would cost me about 50 cents to figure out if it worked. I had this whole other idea which did work but it was very slow and tedious. Soap works overnight. I use baby shampoo, but any clear shampoo will work. Apply at 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet with a hose end sprayer. So if you have 3,000 square feet, put 9 ounces of shampoo into the sprayer, fill it the rest of the way with water, and spray evenly(ish) until the bottle is empty. If you get too much; no problem. Morph has tried to overdo the shampoo and you just can't. I believe what happens is the deeper water creates a better subsurface environment for the beneficial fungi living in the soil. They spread just like mold inside a bread bag to fill the soil with billions of miles of hyphae. The hyphae swell when they are wet and shrink when they dry out. When the swell they push soil particles apart. When they shrink the open air passages into the soil. Remember those few thousand air passages from core aeration? Think in terms of billions or trillions of miles of air passages opened by the soil fungi. Get some shampoo at Dollar Tree and try it.

Humichar. If you cannot return it, then use it and make room in the garage. If you see any differences, please report back here to us skeptics. I've been skeptical before and proved wrong.

Organic matter: Yours is great out of the gate. Roots and microbes are the best things you can have in the soil for improved organic matter. About 1/3 of the grass roots die off per year leaving organic matter behind for the microbes to decompose.

Disease: You'll likely need the fungicide at first, but once you get your watering under control, all important diseases should come to an end. Rust is not an important one, because it generally just looks bad. It doesn't kill anything. Don't think that applying fungicide is a good preventive idea. Remember those beneficial fungi in the previous paragraphs? They don't do so well with fungicides applied all the time.

Weeds: I might apply something like Sedgehammer to the nutsedge. Grass killers do not work on sedge plants. Again, once you get the watering under control, you'll see a lot less nutgrass. My yard goes for months with no nutgrass, but if we get 3-4 days of rain, it comes back. I ignore it. If you happen to get broadleaf weeds like clover, dichondra, oxalis, dandelions, etc., use something like Weed-b-Gon or Weed-b-Gon Chickweed, Clover, and Oxalis Killer (if you can get that in California). Do that in mid April and in September if needed. You should not have to throw everything at it this month or any month.

Dog pee spots: with the dog pee there, your dog will not lick up the sugar. Besides you will moisten it so it goes right down to the soil. Let the microbes take over at that point.

Insecticide: Too many people see an insect in the lawn and run for Home Depot. For one thing, you cannot see the real problem insects. All you see is the damage. For another thing, one of the classes of beneficial microbes in the soil is the population of microscopic insects. One of the worst things you can do is use/overuse insecticides. If you have more visible insects than you think you should have, get a birdbath and/or bird feeder and let those flying predators deal with it for you.

Morpheus thank you for all the feedback. I am curious why you don't put much weight in the accuracy of the soil test because you haven't heard of this lab? I brought the soil samples to my local farm supply and they send them to this lab for analysis. It was $60/sample (not that cost has any impact on accuracy). Why would the lab be "estimating" the CEC number and overestimating based on calcium levels? Isn't this an analysis not an estimate (I don't understand how they perform the testing). I am curious what you skipped mentioning due to accuracy concerns.

Potassium you mention not really needing until next year. What is the purpose of this in your eyes? I read it can help with cold hardiness, disease and stress tolerance, but what do you intend applying it to help with?

I am surprised to read you don't care about Nitrogen when that's "all anyone ever talks about" and slates it as so important and the first of the 3 main ingredients in a fertilizer. Also, with the levels in my soil analysis showing low and very low it sure seems like I should add some. But maybe you are talking about nitrogen that is present in the soil you don't care about but nitrogen from fertilizers you do? I am guessing there.

In regards to pH there is elemental sulfur and aluminum sulfate. Slow acting and fast acting from what I read. But your statement is there is nothing you can do about it. It is just too difficult and costly and too lengthy of a process or just that there is no noticeable benefit to trying to change it anyway?

Thank you

Thanks again for the detailed response dchall! Your description of Tustin is fairly accurate, except I can't recall experiencing much of a sea breeze here on the east side of the 5. It's pretty warm through summer and I certainly haven't worn any light jackets this summer.

I searched through and found some of Lisa's posts and see what you mean. While I can fully appreciate her OCD about the lawn, I have to say that I would be ecstatic is my lawns looked close to her's. I think my photos must have made the lawn look better than it does. Even my wife that thinks I'm crazy for trying to learn about lawn care (among others) says that our lawns look awful. She doesn't want me to do anything to them in fear of them looking any worse. So we agree they could look much better.

Watering

The Rachio controller can be a bit annoying with how it wants to control things so I changed it to a fixed schedule and time. While I completely agree with infrequent deep watering being best, my only struggle with the concept is with my clay soil. The worst thing to do is let clay soil dry out because it is rock hard and water doesn't penetrate. I have done LOTS of digging all around my property and I can certainly attest to both of those. So my issue is with the watering after it is dried out and won't let the water through the top layer and down deep. My soil doesn't pass the drainage test of digging a hole filling it with water then doing it a second time and timing it. If I had more loamy or sandy loam I wouldn't be asking this. Is this really where the shampoo changes everything? But with that said, I will be working on shifting the watering schedule from every 2-3 days (from this extreme heat) to once a week or less.

Mowing

Ok I will keep mowing height 3-4in. Keeps things cooler, healthier and weeds blocked out.

Fertilizer

So fertilizing 3 times a year is what you are suggesting? We can get frost around the end of the Dec to start of Feb. Uncoated urea what makes that different? And the idea here is that the high N fertilizer will help it awaken in the spring sooner than untreated?

Is there any drawback to core aeration? I don't like doing more work than necessary, but I also don't like waiting another year for next October to do it if I wish I did just do it now. I completely agree that once things are in order that I shouldn't be needing herbicides, fungicides, etc. and that is where I want to get. But I do have issues needing the extra help now. I just don't want to need them every year. I would prefer to go as organic as possible and keep the soil microbes and plants happy.

I am in no way against the idea of applying baby shampoo like you described. My questions about it are when as it relates to the time of year and also considering I am going to overseed soon. And how often/times per year do I need to do this baby shampoo treatment? Is it a continual thing? Thank you for the parallel and visual explanations that is very helpful!

If I notice anything from the HumiChar I will certainly report back. Good to know about the fungicide and it taking a toll on the beneficial fungi. I will use it sparingly. I have only applied it once. Would it be ok to do a second application before or after overseeding? Or not any more this year and wait for next year and hopefully not need any?

Weeds

I won't be applying any more herbicides this year because the Tenacity over stressed the lawn with the heat even though I waited for temps to come down some. I will be trying Dismiss Sulfentrazone next year after reading studies showing it as the most effective ingredient against purple nutsedge.

Dog pee spots

I will give the sugar a try. Again do you mean on fresh pee spots or when they are already yellow or dead?

Thank you!

"I am curious why you don't put much weight in the accuracy of the soil test because you haven't heard of this lab?"

Answer: Most labs suck. :-) Back when we were testing labs against a relatively known sample, they were coming back with wildly different answers. Only two were very close--UMass and Logan. Logan won hands down in the end, and even they've had occasional problems. They're also the largest, best-monitored, and most economical at $20 a test.

"Why would the lab be "estimating" the CEC number and overestimating based on calcium levels? Isn't this an analysis not an estimate (I don't understand how they perform the testing)."

Any lab calculated CEC/EC from the saturations in the soil (except when doing an acetate analysis, and even then, it can get borked). With a higher-calcium soil, and yours is borderline, the EC is calculated too high. I've seen ECs calculated in the fifties that I knew durned well were around 10.

Just like any other analysis that could be wrong, I can happily report "7.03139056." The number sound wonderful and incredibly accurate. If the significant digits are only 1, then anything past 7.0 is pointless. And if the test was bad, then the answer might actually be 6.8 or 7.4.

I am curious what you skipped mentioning due to accuracy concerns."

I'll usually specifically discuss saturation percentages and micronutrients. I didn't in your case as I'm not sure of the accuracy. There's no way I'd fiddle with, for instance, boron based on an unknown test. It's just too touchy and the consequences of making a mistake are too severe.

"Potassium you mention not really needing until next year. What is the purpose of this in your eyes? I read it can help with cold hardiness, disease and stress tolerance, but what do you intend applying it to help with?"

It's not seriously out of whack, but you paid for the test, so you might as well balance what isn't correct in the soil, eh? This would pull your potassium balance up to optimal.

It's not so much "what I intend it to help with," but overall plant health over the long term. Over time, plants will use it, and the percentages will drop.

Potassium is antagonistic with calcium and magnesium, both of which are high in your soil, so right now the plants are fighting for it rather too much and rather more than they should be. Adding more (going a bit high to counterbalance) restores a more-proper balance for your particular soil.

"I am surprised to read you don't care about Nitrogen"

On your soil test. :-) It'll vary by time of day, moisture in the soil, whether you applied fertilizer in the last few days or weeks, and the time of year. It's rare that any test of mine would come back with more than a few PPM because I feed organically, but any test will always come back with that during the growing season because I feed organically (except during dry spells).

Feeding the lawn properly is critical and the feeding around here is tuned like a symphony. Testing nitrogen in the soil is something that doesn't concern me or anybody else who reads these things. Or, if they are concerned...well, I might question them as to why.

"In regards to pH there is elemental sulfur and aluminum sulfate. Slow acting and fast acting from what I read. But your statement is there is nothing you can do about it. It is just too difficult and costly and too lengthy of a process or just that there is no noticeable benefit to trying to change it anyway?"

More the latter. Aluminum...really should never be used. Al is toxic to plants and people pour it on their hydrangea (shaking head). If one must, use ferrous sulfate. I never met a soil that didn't have enough aluminum already for hydrangea color, all they need is the pH shift, and in a small area, iron will do.

Elemental sulfur will get you into arguments because people actually seem to believe in the stuff for some reason.

Dug in, it'll sometimes work really slowly for some period of time before it's gone and your natural pH starts to reassert itself because, in your case, you seem to have excess calcium in your soil hanging around. There are soils that are practically limestone and would literally require tons of sulfur, at which point they'd simply wash away as gypsum.

In high-pH soils, it's slow to work, not terribly effective, and the bacteria that work on it are not active. In low pH soils, you don't need the stuff

Surface applied, you lose 80%-95% to the air as smog. Don't do that. And I never recommend tilling in lawns because you'll end up with a permanently bumpy surface that you'll never get flattened again without professional help.

Plus, most lawns simply don't mind any pH from 6.2 to 8.0 anyway. Arguments that they somehow object to anything over 6.8 are pure malarky. Go look at photos of nice lawns in Dallas, Texas--all grown on limestone bases.

I never object to some extra calcium. It's not a problem, you simply have to adjust the potassium to account for it a bit.

Thank you again for the detailed explanations. This has been so great. Well I can certainly understand that now. That is frustrating to have lab results all over the place and why you can't really comment. If I don't mind spending the $40 for another soil sample, would you say that I would get any more value out of it compared to the one I have?

I understand what you mean with Potassium now and agree with improving it since I know it is lacking for better plant health. And what you mean about Nitrogen makes sense. With these soils tests now it is more apparent to me which are more meaningful overall and which are mostly just meaningful for the snapshot in time when the sample was taken. There is too much variability in N to make and drastic conclusions.

Thank you for diving into pH and sulfur for me. All of this is interesting to me and I like to know the why's and the biology behind things, but also how things shake out in reality/practical applications. Its the science/engineering background that has been asking you both why.

Thanks again for your time and help!

Exactly. If I took an N sample 2 days post the rainfall when a urea application watered in, 10-15 PPM N wouldn't be unexpected. A month later, it would be surprising if it showed even 1 PPM, and yet the lawn is not poorly fed. It's just not being fed at that particular instant. What's showing at that time is the organic decay from the grass breaking down from the mulch mowing.

At this point, given the lateness of the season, I'd ride with what you have. If you want to retest next year, great. But work with the potassium levels for now and see where it goes.

There are other considerations. Readers usually cutoff reads around Halloween. I don't do it quite so formally, although I have other considerations myself too and generally discourage it.

It's not that they can't be done, it's that we start walking into the holiday season, which isn't exactly...quiet...for any of us. Although this year, being the Zombie Apocalypse, kind of means we'll be more home-bound than usual. And I've also been asked to include a few pieces in an art auction for the city at the end of the month, so I've been working on two abstracts and a realistic painting for that as well.

So I'm kind of up to my butt in alligators is what I'm saying. Not to mention covered in paint most of the time, which is fairly typical for me anyway. It's not that I don't check in or welcome the distraction--you can't do anything 24/7--but I couldn't take an April-level flood of reads right now if I tried. :-)

I want to get to your reply to me, but I have a dog who insists on going for a walk.

As for your interest in biology, look at the Soil Biology Primer, by Dr Elaine Ingham. Get comfortable, because it's about 50 pages. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/soils/health/biology/

Please note, there's a time or two when you may look yourself in the mirror and wonder where the laws of thermodynamics, chemistry, or other stuff in physics went when reading Dr. Elaine Ingham. It's at this point you should absolutely take her with a grain of salt. She sometimes...steps a little beyond where she ought, let's just say.

Well I said that I thought it was interesting...not captivating for a read like that haha but thanks for the suggestion

"Teaming with Microbes" was better.

My biggest memory of Tustin was blinking and missing it on my way to Newport in the mid 60s. In my memory it was closer to the beach.

Your lawn might not be picture perfect, but it is miles better than many we see.

I understand your fear of letting the soil get cracked. I think once you flush some shampoo through and get started with deep infrequent watering, it should not crack open. My niece's yard in Hemet cracked open so far the fence fell over. I started her watering with a soaker hose to get the water to penetrate deep, and the ground closed up. Shampoo works better than the soaker approach.

The idea of feeding fast acting, high N fertilizer at the end of the season is more of a northern grass (like fescue) technique. Morph could explain this better, but by waiting for the grass to completely stop growing, the nitrogen will still enter the roots and remain stored until spring, basically without competition from other plants.

Are there any drawbacks to core aeration? Certainly the cost if you're having your lawn care company do it. It's not all that inexpensive to rent an aerator and get it delivered. So time and cost are the biggest drawbacks. There are other lawn forums besides this one, and the ones that advocate shampoo do not advocate using an aerator. It becomes superfluous. The soil becomes so soft that aerating never really enters your mind again.

I applied baby shampoo once in 2012 and never again. I did not need it. Every time it rains the soil becomes so soft my ankles sort of roll when I walk on it. That doesn't happen when I water because I don't water nearly long enough to approximate our rain.

I have never seen my dog pee in the yard. I only treat when I see a yellow spot.

Ok yes maybe my lawn isn't the worst you've seen, but my goal is still closer to Lisa's lawn than where I am at now.

I wasn't so much concerned about the soil cracking specifically more so that when it dries out enough that the water likes to pool up and not soak down quickly, but I am going to try out the shampoo trick now instead of core aeration (even though I was going to rent and do the work myself so cost wasn't a factor).

It looks like Johnsons's baby shampoo was reformulated without the use of sulfates so that is out. So baby shampoo or any clear shampoo that contains SLS. Is it supposed to be sodium lauryl sulfate or sodium laureth sulfate? Maybe there isn't any meaningful difference between them for this purpose? Any DO NOTs for which shampoo to buy? Just no anti-bacterial dish soap since that will not be good for the soil. As an example, is this one acceptable (out of curiosity for myself and maybe others since it is purple and has fragrance)? Amazon Brand - Solimo Baby Shampoo, Lavender & Chamomile Scented, 15 Fluid Ounce or this one? Equate Tear-Free Baby Wash & Shampoo

dchall I am wondering if a single shampoo application for your soil would be the same for mine or if you or morph would expect any future applications for my soil? Lastly, Is applying the shampoo not recommended before or after overseeding? Avoid applying when when it is hot 90+?