Soil Analysis in late September?

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Dargin
Posts: 246
Joined: September 29th, 2017, 12:42 pm
Location: Central Mass
Grass Type: Northern Mix
Lawn Size: 1000-3000
Level: Some Experience

Soil Analysis in late September?

Post by Dargin » September 29th, 2017, 1:28 pm

I'm new to lawncare. I just started working on my lawn in May of this year. Already made plenty of rookie mistakes, but managed to get things looking decent, for the time being...

I want to focus on soil health. I core aerated about three weeks ago. Manually. I used a pH test kit from LusterLeaf. Not sure how accurate it is, but it read around 5.2. Pretty ugly to say the least.

I just received 2 kits from Soil Savy. One for the front yard and one for the back.


1. Should I take the samples and send them off for analysis now, or should I wait until spring? I put down 10-10-10 when overseeding three weeks ago. Application rate of 1lb nitrogen per 1k sq. Feet. Would I still get accurate analysis of pH and micronutrients if I did the analysis now?

2. I have some Mag-I-Cal and Love Your Soil on its way. How late can I put down the former? Wait until warmer, more microbial friendly, spring temperatures to use the LYS?

3. Anything else I need to add to make these questions more easily answerable?

Thanks for any and all feedback. When I start to get a clue I'll be certain to reciprocate.

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andy10917
Posts: 29739
Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 10:48 pm
Location: NY (Lower Hudson Valley)
Grass Type: Emblem KBG (Front); Blueberry KBG Monostand (Back)
Lawn Size: 1 acre-2 acre
Level: Advanced

Re: Soil Analysis in late September?

Post by andy10917 » September 29th, 2017, 2:11 pm

Read the Sticky Thread at the top of the Soil Forum.

If you're interested in spending the Winter planning and gathering the soil stuff, soil testing is interpreted for free here by the ST6 group, but only if the tests are done by the lab that the ST6 group uses: Logan Labs. You'll see thousands of tests that have been interpreted. There are no exceptions to the Logan Labs only rule - different labs use different test suites and we (volunteers) cannot know them all. Logan Labs has all of the data that we use to do our reports.

If you applied a fertilizer that contains P and/or K, we strongly recommend that you wait two months before sampling for a soil test.

We stop doing test interpretations at the end of October.

I never recommend applying nutrients before you have test results -- you don't know if calcitic or dolomitic limes are the answer for you (or calcitic + epsom salts).

Dargin
Posts: 246
Joined: September 29th, 2017, 12:42 pm
Location: Central Mass
Grass Type: Northern Mix
Lawn Size: 1000-3000
Level: Some Experience

Re: Soil Analysis in late September?

Post by Dargin » September 29th, 2017, 2:35 pm

Thank you for the info. I'll head over to the soil forum and do some reading. Appreciated.

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