# Spoon Feeding with Granular Products



## BakerGreenLawnMaker (Mar 13, 2018)

Hello all, this season I'd like to spoon feed both the front yard (St Aug) and backyard (Zoysia) with granular fertilizer, specifically CX DIY 24-0-4, or Fertilome 15-0-15, haven't made my decision just yet. May need some advice on which one, but practically, how would I calculate the application rates for 7000 sq/ft and 2500 sq/ft, and how often would I need to spoon feed it this season?


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## TN Hawkeye (May 7, 2018)

BakerGreenLawnMaker said:


> Hello all, this season I'd like to spoon feed both the front yard (St Aug) and backyard (Zoysia) with granular fertilizer, specifically CX DIY 24-0-4, or Fertilome 15-0-15, haven't made my decision just yet. May need some advice on which one, but practically, how would I calculate the application rates for 7000 sq/ft and 2500 sq/ft, and how often would I need to spoon feed it this season?


Spoon feeding is generally considered applying smaller doses of fert more often. I'm not overly familiar with the monthly nitrogen requirements for either of those grasses (especially during different times of year). You would need to find out how much N you want to apply each month to each lawn. Then decide how many times you want to apply per month. Just as a generic example, if I want to spoon feed 1lb of Nitrogen over my lawn by applying 4 times a month I would need to apply .25 lbs of nitrogen each application. For the CX DIY this would be about one pound of fertilizer per 1000 sq ft per application. For my 8000 sq ft of Bermuda I would apply 8 pounds of fertilizer over the entire lawn. For the fertilome I would apply just under 2 pounds of fertilizer per 1000 sq ft so about 14 pounds of fertilizer over the lawn each application. But before you get too deep into you really need to know what the grasses need at specific times of year. Hope this helps.


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## BakerGreenLawnMaker (Mar 13, 2018)

TN Hawkeye said:


> BakerGreenLawnMaker said:
> 
> 
> > Hello all, this season I'd like to spoon feed both the front yard (St Aug) and backyard (Zoysia) with granular fertilizer, specifically CX DIY 24-0-4, or Fertilome 15-0-15, haven't made my decision just yet. May need some advice on which one, but practically, how would I calculate the application rates for 7000 sq/ft and 2500 sq/ft, and how often would I need to spoon feed it this season?
> ...


For both Zoysia and St Aug 2-4lbs of actual nitrogen per growing season. So if my math is right, of the 24-0-4 I'd lay .8lbs of N per month, so that be 80/24=3.3 lbs of actual product per month per 1000, right?


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## TN Hawkeye (May 7, 2018)

BakerGreenLawnMaker said:


> TN Hawkeye said:
> 
> 
> > BakerGreenLawnMaker said:
> ...


It depends on your growing season. On The Rock I would guess you have around 8 months of growing season (March-October)? On the high side you would want .5lb of N per month if you disperse it evenly across the calendar. The problem you are going to face is evenly spreading a very small amount of fertilizer. If you apply twice per month you are looking at 1lb per thousand square feet. That is not a lot of fert to try to spread evenly.


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## Gilley11 (Nov 3, 2019)

2lbs of 24-0-1 is .48lb of N
.5(.5lb) / .24 (24%) = 2.08

Like TN said, it's tough to spread out 2lb of granular over 1k. If you're going to spoon feed, I think that it would be a lot easier to use a lower N granular.

If you have a sprayer, it would be easier to dissolve urea in any given amount of water and apply it that way. Urea is cheap N.


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## CarolinaCuttin (Sep 6, 2019)

If you want to "spoon feed" but don't want to spray, I think your best bet is to just use a slow release fertilizer once every month or so. Look at Koch's Nitroform. Spoon feeding granulars is tough because less particles mean less uniformity of coverage. Putting out 0.2 lbs N/M with Urea (46-0-0) as a granular would be a waste of time in my opinion. You'll probably end up with speckling especially if your grass is hungry.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Spoon feeding is normally done with fast release products.


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