Fertilizer recommendations for lawns can be confusing to the average homeowner. These instructions are usually given in pounds of nitrogen to be applied per 1, square feet.
Luckily, you can use online fertilizer calculators to simplify things. Applying too much fertilizer to your lawn will cause the nitrogen and salt levels in the soil to increase rapidly, which can damage or even kill the grass. These symptoms can appear as soon as the day after a fertilizer application, making it easy to determine the cause. To avoid over-fertilizing, applying a fertilizer every two weeks is not recommended. Fertilizing as often as every two weeks will likely lead to problems such as lawn burn, excessive grass growth, as well as polluted water that can lead to toxic algae growth.
A natural, healthier way of feeding your lawn every two weeks would be to simply leave the grass clippings on the lawn surface after mowing your grass. Some fertilizers contain high levels of nitrogen, which if absorbed in large amounts can become harmful. Burned lawns will need a generous amount of water to get back to green. Slowly soak the affected areas every day for about a week to fully flush out the extra salt.
To avoid causing sun damage while the lawn is in crisis, be sure to water early in the morning. Within a few weeks, the affected areas should be turning back to green. If not, those areas of your lawn may need to be dug up and overseeded to inspire new growth.
Most lawn care companies recommend that you apply lawn fertilizer in the spring, between February and April. Thus, a lb bag of covers 13, sq ft at a rate of 1. Example How many lb bags of will you need to fertilize a 30, sq ft lawn at 1.
Example You are treating a large sports turf complex and would like to determine how many lb of a fertilizer should be applied per acre if the recommendation calls for 0. Peter Landschoot, Ph. Why do we need this? Entering your postal code will help us provide news or event updates for your area. Related Products. Professional Pest Managers School Workshops. Estimating and Bidding for Landscape Installation Workshops. This industrial fixation of nitrogen is performed in chemical laboratories and large factories all over the world.
The Haber-Bosch process requires that nitrogen gas be mixed with hydrogen gas H 2 and put under enormous pressure times atmospheric pressure. Sustaining these high pressures and temperatures requires a huge amount of energy. The short answer is that nitrogen-containing fertilizers help crop plants grow faster and helps to produce more crops.
This allows agricultural land to be used more efficiently because fertilized land produces more food. The crops take it up of course! Unfortunately, that is not the end of the story.
So, while fertilizers make crops grow better and faster, half of the fixed nitrogen we add is lost. The lost nitrogen can end up in the atmosphere or it can be washed out of the soil and end up in waterways, such as groundwater, streams, lakes, rivers, and oceans Figure 2. This lost nitrogen causes a variety of environmental problems [ 2 ]. Some soil microorganisms can transform nitrogen provided in fertilizers into nitrogen-containing gases, which get released into the atmosphere like the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide N 2 O.
Greenhouse gases are one of the main factors accelerating global warming. In waterways, the addition of external nutrients like excess nitrogen is called eutrophication. Eutrophication is an unwanted fertilization of a waterway and it promotes the growth of microorganisms, algae, and plants, just like the fertilization of soil. However, the fast growth of microorganisms and plants can use up all the oxygen in these waterways and turn them into so-called dead zones, because aquatic animals cannot live without oxygen.
Eutrophication can also lead to the growth of algal species that produce toxic chemicals, called harmful algal blooms.
While we need nitrogen from fertilizers in our agricultural soils, we do not need or want additional nitrogen in our atmosphere or waterways. This means we have to balance the positive benefits of nitrogen fertilization more food with the negative consequences of excess fertilizer environmental problems [ 1 , 2 ]. Scientists are currently working to find this balance to improve our current situation.
This solution is called improving the nitrogen use efficiency of agricultural environments. The rest of the bag usually contains filler material that helps ensure an even application of the fertilizer. By the way, a lawn fertilizer is a good basic mix to use in spring.
Slow-release lawn fertilizers break down their nutrients over a longer period of time, so you can wait longer between applications. That saves you both time and money. He recommends a slow-release that contains nitrogen, but not too much. The grass can't get any greener than that. If you use more, you're only going to make the grass grow faster so you have to mow more often," Turnbull explains. So, over four weeks, that's a quarter pound of nitrogen per week, which is way too much," Turnbull says.
When professional landscapers apply fertilizer, they often drive up in a tanker truck and spray your entire lawn in a remarkably short amount of time. But pros do this every day, so they know how to factor in for the wind and make sure the yard gets even coverage.
And they have the proper equipment to get the job done right. Homeowners, on the other hand, should use granules, which are super simple to apply using a spreader see tip No. Now, the second feeding should happen about four weeks after the first application, around mid-May or so.
Then fertilize every six to eight weeks after that straight through to October. For the third feeding, use an organic material, such as manure, instead of a traditional lawn fertilizer.
And remember that fall feeding is critical, too. The roots are going down into the soil and they need fertilizer," Turnbull says. Contrary to what some people think, the more you water your lawn, the more fertilizer it needs.
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