Spring with its warmer weather, and the new growing season is just around the corner. It's time for us DIY'ers to start thinking about the lawn.
If we have taken care of the lawn properly, we should be weed free with a lush stand of our favorite grass variety from bermuda to centipede. We could run down to our favorite store and grab a bag of 10-10-10 and spread the whole bag out over the yard. That might work for a while but you would be wasting money, water resources, time and effort. To achieve a properly fertilized turf grass, a soil analysis should be done. It will help you provide a more precise feeding thus saving money, maintenance time and effort, and simultaneously conserving irrigation water.
A soil test can provide us information such as the soil pH, the nutrient availability in the soil, the micronutrient levels and if there are any salinity or sodium problems in the soil. With these facts we can then determine the best ratio and amount of fertilizer to apply to yield a healthy turf grass.
The three major components added to the soil via commercial fertilizer are (1) nitrogen (2) phosphorus (3) potassium. On every bag of fertilizer, by law, is an analysis of the contents expressed in the percent amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium; i.e. 20-10-5 would be a ratio of 20% nitrogen, 10% phosphorus, and 5% potassium. A fifty pound bag of 20-10-5 analysis fertilizer will yield 10 pounds of nitrogen, 5 pounds of phosphorus, and 2.5 pounds of potassium. The remaining 32.5 pounds in the bag is filler. You can adjust the analysis and the amount of application to follow the guidelines provided by the soil test.
You should develop a personal fertilization program for your turf based on soil test analysis, turf grass requirements and mowing/maintenance program. An under-fertilized lawn will have a thin poor colored turf while lawns that are over fertilized may develop thatch and be subject to disease, insects, and damage from use.
John G. Meadows, Smith County Master Gardener Intern
Texas AgriLife Extension Service
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