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Now is the time to fertilize the lawn |
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Written by Rick Rosen, MCT
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Friday, 05 October 2007 |
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Time is running out to apply chemical fertilizer to your lawn (though you have more time if you use organic fertilizer). But why fertilize in fall, when your grass will just go dormant anyway in a couple of months?
Spreading nitrogen fertilizer in fall helps your lawn resist winter weeds, improves fall color and strengthens your yard for spring, says Texas Cooperative Extension. But, in many areas, this is considered the last weekend to apply it so that the lawn will fully use it.
If you didn't in spring, measure your yard, so you'll know the exact amount of fertilizer you need. Applying too much can mean that quite a bit ends up in the water supply.
Get a long tape measure and walk off each section of lawn. Add up the measurements to get the total area of the lawn in square feet. (If you keep the total-square-feet figure in a place you'll remember, then you'll only have to do this task once.) Then use the calculator at bottom.
Texas Cooperative Extension recommends using a fertilizer that represents a 4-1-2 ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus and potassium. Many local soils, according to the turf experts at Extension, already have enough phosphorus and potassium. To find out about your soil, you can have your soil tested.
Organic experts emphasize a long-range program of building up your soil to avoid the need for fertilizer. But for short-range help, organic garden shops sell fertilizer with natural ingredients.
Natural fertilizers include alfalfa meal, corn gluten meal, cottonseed meal and soybean meal, seaweed products and manure. Organic proponents say you don't have to be as concerned with timing and amount when you apply organic fertilizers as you do with chemical ones.
Paul Tukey, author of "The Organic Lawn Care Manual" (Storey Publishing, $19.95 paperback) says: "The good news about all these natural products is the built-in safety net. Burning your lawn or harming the environment is difficult when you take synthetic fertilizer out of the equation. That's because the concentrations of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus are far lower with natural products. Some people may see this as a negative; it's not, though. Naturally occurring nutrients break down more slowly in the soil and therefore last longer."
HOW MUCH FERTILIZER?
To calculate how much fertilizer to buy, based on amount of nitrogen, here's a chart prepared by Texas Cooperative Extension. The application depends on many factors, including type of grass, whether it is in shade, and more.
In the chart, the first number is the percentage of nitrogen, which is always the first number on a bag of fertilizer. The other two numbers, representing phosphorus and potassium, do not need to be considered in this equation.
Fertilizer bag reads: 6-X-X; Nitrogen to apply per 1,000 sq. feet: 8.3 lbs.
Fertilizer bag reads: 8-X-X; Nitrogen to apply per 1,000 sq. feet: 6.2 lbs
Fertilizer bag reads: 9-X-X; Nitrogen to apply per 1,000 sq. feet: 5.5 lbs.
Fertilizer bag reads: 15-X-X; Nitrogen to apply per 1,000 sq. feet: 3.3 lbs.
Fertilizer bag reads: 20-X-X; Nitrogen to apply per 1,000 sq. feet: 2.5 lbs.
Fertilizer bag reads: 21-X-X; Nitrogen to apply per 1,000 sq. feet: 2.4 lbs.
As an example, take an 8-2-4 fertilizer:
Divide the amount of nitrogen you want to add (we're using ½ pound per 1,000 feet) by the percentage of nitrogen in the fertilizer (8 percent in this example).
Divide 0.5 (half of 1 is 0.5) by 0.08, which equals 6.25 pounds of fertilizer.
If, for example, your yard measures 3,000 square feet, divide 3,000 by the 1,000 square feet base measurement. That gives you 3. Multiply 3 by 6.25.
You get 18.75 pounds. So, to get enough nitrogen to apply ½ pound per 1,000 square feet of lawn, you would need to buy 18.75 pounds of the 8-2-4 fertilizer. | Only registered users can write comments.
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