# My soil test doesn't look good!



## Lawnie (Apr 20, 2021)

I can't figure out why the ca and mg are so high? We do have hard water here and the soil is clayish but I haven't been watering the lawn hardly at all the last 2 years. My irrigation system was shut off last year and I never even started it. I had a guy doing applications the last several years but once I came to the forum and started actually learning about a few things I decided to try this myself.

Not sure where to begin trying to amend it? Any suggestions? I'm going to do a full reno this year.


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## Ridgerunner (May 16, 2017)

Keep educating yourself.
Search this forum for MySoil, Soil Savvy and Yard Mastery soil tests.


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## Virginiagal (Apr 24, 2017)

I too have little faith in those Soil savvy, Yard Mastery, etc. tests. But they did give you a fertilizer recommendation, didn't they? It's just for one application but you can use that. If you want to get a soil test from a reliable lab, you can do that. They will give recommendations for a whole year's worth of amendments.


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## Lawnie (Apr 20, 2021)

I guess I'll just start throwing down 10-10-10 or 12-12-12 and add some sulphur and iron and see how it goes. I believe adding sulphur should bring down the pH slightly. I still think the Ca looks whack - like maybe my soil in the parkway is saturated with the salt they throw down on the roads around here.


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## Virginiagal (Apr 24, 2017)

You should not use elemental sulfur. Your pH is good now. There are fertilizers that have sulfur in a sulfate form and those do not lower pH. SOP 0-0-50 is one of them; it's a potassium fertilizer. Ammonium sulfate is a nitrogen fertilizer. It's even possible that the 12-12-12 has some sulfur (if so, it will be on the label). The soil remediation guidelines may be useful:
https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=15165

Some soils just have a lot of calcium. If you also had a high pH you might look into whether you have calcareous soil, but I don't you do. Maybe it's just a lab error.


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## Lawnie (Apr 20, 2021)

Thank you so much for your insights!!


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## Lawn Noob (Jul 26, 2020)

My soil test shows low npk too. I've put down 80# of 10-10-10 so far this year. The grass is digging it. I have solid micros from the milorganite I used last year.


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## Lawnie (Apr 20, 2021)

Thanks Lawn Noob - how often have you been applying? Do you water it in? I guess basically what has your application schedule looked like? Also do you have a brand of 10-10-10 that you prefer?


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## Virginiagal (Apr 24, 2017)

@LawnNoob i hope that is 80# across your whole yard, not 80# per 1000 sq ft. Your area is 3500 sq ft and you should not do more than 1# of N, P and K per application. So with 10-10-10 (10% for each nutrient) that's 3.5 x 10 = 35 lb per application.. Most of the fertilizer should go down in the fall, not the spring. Don't do any nitrogen in the summer. I hope you have a fungicide plan as tttf in Virginia will likely be hit with brown patch when we get into warmer, humid weather. I'm going to start when nighttime lows are in the 60s.

@Lawnie Your area is 6500 sq ft so with 10-10-10 you can put down 6.5 x 10 = 65 lb per application. With 12-12-12 you can put down 6.5 x 8 = 52 lb per application. Divide the % number into 1 to get how many pounds of product make a lb of nutrient. No nitrogen in the hot summer. If you find P and K without nitrogen, they can go down in summer but you might as well wait til fall and make several applications then. Always water in any granular fertilizer.


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## Virginiagal (Apr 24, 2017)

Here are general fertilizer guidelines for Iowa:
https://store.extension.iastate.edu/Product/Lawn-Fertilization-pdf


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## Virginiagal (Apr 24, 2017)

And for Virginia:
https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/content/dam/pubs_ext_vt_edu/CSES/CSES-135/CSES-135-pdf.pdf


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## Lawn Noob (Jul 26, 2020)

Virginiagal said:


> @LawnNoob i hope that is 80# across your whole yard, not 80# per 1000 sq ft. Your area is 3500 sq ft and you should not do more than 1# of N, P and K per application. So with 10-10-10 (10% for each nutrient) that's 3.5 x 10 = 35 lb per application.. Most of the fertilizer should go down in the fall, not the spring. Don't do any nitrogen in the summer. I hope you have a fungicide plan as tttf in Virginia will likely be hit with brown patch when we get into warmer, humid weather. I'm going to start when nighttime lows are in the


80#s on the total lawn. I'm not putting 5 pounds back in the garage from a 40# bag on an app :lol: If the lawn gets 1.2# n per thousand instead of 1# I'm ok with that. Lawn seems happy. Lots of mowing, which I enjoy :nod: full disclosure; the Lawn Care Nut corrupted my thinking about spring fertilizer early on in my lawn education...throw 'er down, hope for the best :lol:

I plan to hit it hard one more time this month on fertilizer and then throw one bag rate app of milorganite in mid-late June to carry me through the summer. I went to exclusively foliar urea apps in the fall and plan to do the same this year.

Fungicide rotation will be starting in the next two weeks. That's when I'm seeing several nights in a row in the 60s.

The stuff that looks like broadleaf weeds below are leaves from the trees. This pic was taken last month.


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## Lawn Noob (Jul 26, 2020)

Lawnie said:


> Thanks Lawn Noob - how often have you been applying? Do you water it in? I guess basically what has your application schedule looked like? Also do you have a brand of 10-10-10 that you prefer?


I've put been putting down fertilizer monthly since March when I got green up. I do water it in. I like whatever is cheap. I used Quaker Gap 10-10-10 from Home Depot thus far. I let the fertilizer lap into my planting beds too when applying.


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## Virginiagal (Apr 24, 2017)

@lawnn00b All that fertilizer in the spring is depleting your carbohydrate reserves, making it vulnerable to summer stress. It's like you're making it run at high speed now and it's going to be very tired when the hot weather comes. It's your grass, so do as you like. But you should not advise others to make excessive fertilizer applications in the spring.


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## Lawn Noob (Jul 26, 2020)

Virginiagal said:


> @lawnn00b All that fertilizer in the spring is depleting your carbohydrate reserves, making it vulnerable to summer stress. It's like you're making it run at high speed now and it's going to be very tired when the hot weather comes. It's your grass, so do as you like. But you should not advise others to make excessive fertilizer applications in the spring.


I didn't give advice. I told others what I was doing.

You may prove correct. We'll see. It's only grass.


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## ksturfguy (Sep 25, 2018)

Lawn Noob said:


> Virginiagal said:
> 
> 
> > @lawnn00b All that fertilizer in the spring is depleting your carbohydrate reserves, making it vulnerable to summer stress. It's like you're making it run at high speed now and it's going to be very tired when the hot weather comes. It's your grass, so do as you like. But you should not advise others to make excessive fertilizer applications in the spring.
> ...


There's only 100s of university studies showing spring fert apps really aren't needed or at least not very much. You have already applied 2.2 lbs of N and will be damn near 4 lbs of N by June or July. Thats the yearly recommendation and you haven't even got to fall yet. It's really not needed.

Now if you did a reno in the fall then yes you should fert more in the spring to help it establish still but if not then throwing down a bunch of N in the spring just isn't necessary.

Like you said its just grass and it's your lawn so you do you but that's what this forum is for so we can all learn and get better. Save money when we can, make the right apps to make the turf as healthy as possible, etc.


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