Fertilizing my lawn for initial spring application
- Thread starter spierceisu
- Start date
Whatever fertilizer the lawn company put on my yard lol.
I've always been taught to wait till soil temperatures reach the mid-50s. Currently mid-40s in Central Iowa.
mesonet.agron.iastate.edu
IEM :: Current Products
Iowa Environmental Mesonet of Iowa State University
Tree will be fine. Pre-emergent only affects germinating seed.
Putting down chicken manure in my yard today. Dethatched last fall and then again a couple weeks ago with some rain coming thought it would be a good idea to get it down. $23 for a couple 4,000 yard bags.
I cleaned out the chicken house when I was young. Placed about a 1/2 of it on Moms strawberry patch. Let's just say that was ill advised. Burnt them bad.
???
I'm not tracking this line of thinking. Pre-emergent application should be based on soil temps, not date on a calendar. No second application should be needed, since if you miss the germination window then you're dealing with post-emergent treatments later.
What am I missing here?
So much depends on the person applying the product and the quality of the chemical. I've watched these companies sprint through a subdivision, and others who actually take their time and do it right. I'm a do it myself on 1.5 acre. And I probably pay double what a "chem lawn" would charge me. However, the result is so worth it for me.
Raw chicken manure will do that. Learned that from raising chickens on the farm and then putting it on your garden at a high rate. Dried out type is much easier on lawns and gardens.
Could there not be a longer window for it this year? If the chemicals only last so long it makes sense to me that you might need a double dose
You're correct - however the odds of soil temps staying at germination levels for the next month aren't high IMO. It largely would depend on what product is used and how much rainfall we get in that period. If you estimate 8 weeks of effectiveness for the product then we have exited our effective window in Mid-May already. If temps stay high then everything will germinate in that window and all will be fine. If we drop in temp again for the next month then we could start approaching the end of that effective period pretty quickly and want to be looking at a second application.
I guess my point was don't be surprised when the lawn companies use the early warm temps as a sales opportunity for additional applications.
Safe to dethatch now IMO. I would say the pre emergence depends on the size of your yard and cost. Smaller yard I have no problem having to come back and do another one. I will do one tomorrow before the rain is suppose to hit. I layer the applications throughout the year. In Central Iowa we already have some weeds popping up along the landscapes and warm spots in the yard.
Yards not wide but long. So I like to hit it in one shot. I am not super picky but prefer a halfway decent yard. And my neighbors don’t do jack for weeds so if I don’t nail the preemergence timing, I’ve got a mess all summer.
