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I am planning on doing the aggressive fall nitrogen approach for my established front and side lawn. Do you think it is ok for the same aggressive approach on my back yard that was sodded in mid-August? It is about 3k sq ft. I am also planning to do some soil conditioning (BLSC) to help with root establishment and drainage on the sod. It seems that nitrogen would also help with establishment, but worried about how much help may be too much

For a recently sodded area, I might be more tempted to spoon-feed it at a lower rate. Recent sod doesn't have a deep or extensive root system, but the spoon feeding will help it grow one.

Ultimately, a spoon feeding at--say--a quarter pound of nitrogen per K per week would still result in a huge amount of N this fall. It's more involved, but gives the sod's trimmer one-month roots a constant bath of dilute N.

Most sod farms keep their sod in this kind of constant bath (something akin to Milorganite is also commonly used, wholesaled locally if possible from what I hear), to keep roots growing at the maximum rate. It's also a trick I use in the garden with my irrigation system, and the houseplants by feeding at minimal rates every time I water.

Hey All,

I was hoping for a bit of advice with the Fall Nitrogen Regime, and appropriateness for me this year.
This year was the first year on a full reno from Fall 2019. Thing went very well in the Spring, well into Summer (following soil test reco's religiously). Summer heat and increased dog pee resulted in a few areas that were pretty well burned out. I also had some areas that were affected by fungus, which are also brown. Lastly, the 8 days of power outage after the big storms left me with no irrigation on a pretty hot stretch.

I'm thinking about top dressing and seeding some of the worse areas (fungus afflicted areas), and letting the less bad areas wake up, green up, and then following with the Fall Schedule.

Should the Fall plan only be applied to areas that are actively growing and healthy? I know not to hit the topdress areas with Urea, but what about the areas of slight browning?

All help and advice is appreciated.

Thanks,

Bryan

MorpheusPA wrote: ↑

September 3rd, 2020, 12:48 pm

For a recently sodded area, I might be more tempted to spoon-feed it at a lower rate. Recent sod doesn't have a deep or extensive root system, but the spoon feeding will help it grow one.

Ultimately, a spoon feeding at--say--a quarter pound of nitrogen per K per week would still result in a huge amount of N this fall. It's more involved, but gives the sod's trimmer one-month roots a constant bath of dilute N.

Most sod farms keep their sod in this kind of constant bath (something akin to Milorganite is also commonly used, wholesaled locally if possible from what I hear), to keep roots growing at the maximum rate. It's also a trick I use in the garden with my irrigation system, and the houseplants by feeding at minimal rates every time I water.

Thanks again for your advice Morpheus!

How does everyone keep them selves from over doing it with the Urea? :-)

This is my second week; I carefully measured out the 1lb I needed for about 1,000sf, I then "feed the birds" as my SO says, and once again I found myself going for just a little more to get some spots I missed :-)

The problem may be I have been trying to really get the borders where I want it to spread and then run out of it for the middle.

I really notice the KBG is eating this stuff up this year, last year my lawn was dormant and it didn't seem to go nuts until Oct 1st. This year it got through August OK and its hungry and it greened up really fast as soon as the temps lowered and the days got shorter.

I am having trouble holding back the Urea when the lawn seems to respond to it so well.

The program/regimen is designed to make it hard to screw up - you have to make the same mistake in the same spot three times in a row to cause damage. That's pretty damned hard to do even if you try.

Don't be scared by Urea - it's in almost all the fertilizers you use. Just take normal cautions to use the pure form and you'll be fine.

Got my first application down yesterday 1lb/1000k. Temps dropping into the 50's with a slow, steady rain over the next two days. Could total 1.5 inches. What a start to repairing the summer drought and damage

Did my first "aggressive" application this weekend. Was very hard to resist the temptation to put down more as the rate seemed very light. But using the suggested spreader setting, I put in 25 lbs for 20k sq ft of lawn. Had 5 lbs left over. Watered in. 3 days later the lawn seemed a little stressed by it, so water again. Can adding Urea in this method stress it temporarily?

Not normally. Did you do the "wake-up" application back in August? If so, using what fertilizer?

We should get this thread pinned. Thank you Andy for this amazing information!

Hi Andy,

yes I did wake it up 3 weeks prior with BSF. Woke up nicely too...the iron helped I think...Now some spots are lighter green etc....

What a year!!! By maintaining the irrigation all Summer, and 3 years of Humic DG apps, I barely got a breather this Summer from "Spring Flush" conditions. The August 15th "wake-up" app did not cause too much top growth, but apparently wound the spring tighter - the first Fall Urea app last week caused a literal explosion of growth. I'm staying the course on weekly apps, but I'm almost afraid to see what more Urea will do - this seems like pouring gasoline on a fire. 4" sprinkler heads are showing fan patterns on the lawn because the water is immediately hitting the grass near the heads. With the days getting shorter and work schedule, I can't do a mowing mid-week right now.

Something seems to be going on just from oddball weather patterns. Once mine emerged from dormancy, "machine-gun growth" seemed like the order of the day around here as well. And with temperatures and rainfall patterns holding from August (warm and wet), growth is still very fast and very strong when it should be shifting into a more fall-like pattern.

I'm adjusting my schedule and dropping Milo shortly (the probability of rainfall is modest for the next few days) to get some fast N and iron into the mix once more and adjust the slower N into it as September winds down. I'll simply dump a load of synthetics come October first and pretend I didn't see who did that.

If you're using the Fall Nitrogen Regimens, it's time to double-check the Average First Frost date for determining when to stop applying Urea and other fertilizes. A Link is provided within the first posting of this thread, Please note that Actual First Frost date is NOT important as it varies widely year-to-year.

For the non-irrigated areas of the lawn, does it make sense to just get down 1lb/k monthly of nitrogen at a time, given the fact that it only seems to rain once a month at my house lately?

I personally wouldn't do the aggressive regimen on an unirrigated lawn during a drought - how would you know if last week's application was processed before the next app is due?

So, 1/2lb N monthly until rain is more frequent? Despite the lack of rain, somehow I am still mowing every 6 days. I did 1/2lb N just before we got about 3/4 inch two weeks ago. At this pace, I won't need to buy much, if any, urea for next season!

I have no tested regimen for Urea without irrigation, and since I'm a big believer in irrigation, it's unlikely that I'll ever develop a regimen for using it during a drought. Sorry to say, you're on your own for a recommendation = I don't recommend what I haven't tested.

andy10917 wrote: ↑

September 15th, 2020, 7:45 am

I have no tested regimen for Urea without irrigation, and since I'm a big believer in irrigation, it's unlikely that I'll ever develop a regimen for using it during a drought. Sorry to say, you're on your own for a recommendation = I don't recommend what I haven't tested.

Andy, isn't part of the need to water to reduce N loss to evaporation? I thought that I read that someone on the forum...

Yes. But it's Volatilization and not Evaporation.

A 0.50-inch rainfall within three hours of urea application on pasture can be sufficient to protect urea from volatilization, whereas a 0.50-inch rainfall two days later may not

There are many factors that affect the amount of Nitrogen loss. Cooler soil temperatures lower the rate some. But the best application method is to apply Urea and follow with 0.25" to 0.50" of rain or irrigation rather soon after application.