help lawn turned brown after sodium laureth sulfate and yucca extract

Kentucky bluegrass, Fescue, Rye and Bent, etc
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dan99
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help lawn turned brown after sodium laureth sulfate and yucca extract

Post by dan99 » June 11th, 2020, 11:45 am

I used this article https://aroundtheyard.com/index.php?opt ... Itemid=117 for my soil conditioner but my grass turned brown the day after i applied the soap/yucca combo so im not sure if i burned the lawn somehow or if the grass is just dyed brown from the solution. Also i applied when it was very hot outside. any help on what i did wrong ?

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PSU4ME
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Re: help lawn turned brown after sodium laureth sulfate and yucca extract

Post by PSU4ME » June 11th, 2020, 5:02 pm

What rate did you apply it at? How?

I don’t see blsc killing your lawn if you followed the instructions in the article

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Re: help lawn turned brown after sodium laureth sulfate and yucca extract

Post by Leifcat1 » June 12th, 2020, 8:50 pm

dan99 wrote:
June 11th, 2020, 11:45 am
I used this article https://aroundtheyard.com/index.php?opt ... Itemid=117 for my soil conditioner but my grass turned brown the day after i applied the soap/yucca combo so im not sure if i burned the lawn somehow or if the grass is just dyed brown from the solution. Also i applied when it was very hot outside. any help on what i did wrong ?
I'm curious about this too as I recently purchased the ingredients for this recipe.

Did you water in the solution after application? One popular sodium laureth product that's currently on the market for purchase recommends watering the lawn heavily after application.

I have other concerns about this solution. I know others haven't reported many problems with the solution, but I spoke with the Turfgrass Professor at Iowa State University yesterday. I have a terrible compaction problem and I asked him his opinion of SLS products. He told me not to do it. He said that sodium products can severely hurt/kill the grass plant.

So now I'm in a bind. One person is telling me not to do it, but others on this site have been using the solution for years (even though it sounds like the recipe has changed a few times).

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Re: help lawn turned brown after sodium laureth sulfate and yucca extract

Post by andy10917 » June 12th, 2020, 9:47 pm

So now I'm in a bind. One person is telling me not to do it, but others on this site have been using the solution for years (even though it sounds like the recipe has changed a few times).
Do the obvious - apply it in one area, and don't apply it in another, for 3-4 months. Then make a decision based on empirical evidence.

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Re: help lawn turned brown after sodium laureth sulfate and yucca extract

Post by MorpheusPA » June 12th, 2020, 10:09 pm

I took care of this in another thread; he'd applied it at 21 oz per gallon per thousand square feet instead of the recommended 2 oz per gallon per thousand square feet.

Damage, as it turns out, was minimal.
Leifcat1 wrote:
June 12th, 2020, 8:50 pm
I have other concerns about this solution. I know others haven't reported many problems with the solution, but I spoke with the Turfgrass Professor at Iowa State University yesterday. I have a terrible compaction problem and I asked him his opinion of SLS products. He told me not to do it. He said that sodium products can severely hurt/kill the grass plant.
True as far as it goes (not very far in and of itself), but I'll withhold my opinion on absolutist opinions founded on minimal data and delivered from on-high from one who probably didn't have full information or review the actual formula or the data behind it.
So now I'm in a bind. One person is telling me not to do it, but others on this site have been using the solution for years (even though it sounds like the recipe has changed a few times).
You say the latter like it's a bad thing. :-) I revise surfactants when I find a cheaper source or one where the bang-buck ratio is, at that time, superior to the one currently in use. I've provided alternates for those who cannot source one or the other in their locales, or where they can't afford one or another at the current time--but can afford a $1 bottle of cheap shampoo from the dollar store.

I'm not here to make up your mind for you. If it really bothers you, find a shampoo or other surfactant that's ammonium-based. There are certainly plenty out there, usually the cheaper ones as well.

I can do the math on exactly how much sodium this deposits in your soil per year, even if you do this monthly at 2 oz per thousand for six months a year. Simple Answer: not bloody much.

More Complex Answer: Assuming sodium laureth sulfate (if you're using another source, your mileage will vary, but this is actually one of the worst answers). C12H25SO4Na (no idea how to do subscripts here). Molecular weight: 288.38 g/mol.

Note that one little sodium atom at the end there. Molecular weight: 22.99 g/mol.

Or, sodium per atom: 0.0797, or let's round up and call it 8% of weight. You're using 2 oz per gallon of SLS (which is, in the initial recipe, itself diluted by quite a bit, but let's pretend you're using a pure SLS powder instead of the mixed concentrate [which is part water] to make this answer far worse than it really is). So remember, as a floor we're now rounding up at every step and shooting at least 30% high here on the current article.

That's 2 oz or 2 * 0.08 = 0.16 oz of sodium per gallon of solution, which will be spread over 1,000 square feet.

I'm turning that into pounds, or 0.01 pounds, for reasons that will be obvious shortly. Of course, if you apply this six times per season, that's 0.06 pounds per year over a thousand square feet.

Soil, on average, weighs about 50,000 pounds per thousand square feet to a depth of 6 inches (I'm rounding that weight and I'm actually rather low on it, but close enough), and of course, the sodium is not bound into the top six inches and will eventually leach below that point and out of the topsoil profile entirely and into the lower soil horizons.

0.06/50000 = 0.0000012 proportionate change, or, to put it in a manner in which it becomes something where a Logan test could measure it...

Drum roll please...

1.2 parts per million.

Which amounts to, effectively, zip.


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Re: help lawn turned brown after sodium laureth sulfate and yucca extract

Post by Leifcat1 » June 12th, 2020, 10:32 pm

I think you had been practicing that (very detailed) response for a while 😁

In full disclosure, I tried a commercial SLS product last week from Simple Lawn Solutions. I used it on about 3k sq ft of junk soil that I purchased from a landscape supply company. (I firmly believe they sold me dead soil with absolutely no structure) But guess what? The lawn survived! (It was a little yellow for a few days afterwards, but an application of Milo fixed that in a few days) I guess my only concern was that the recipe on this site seemed like a supercharged version of the commercial product I used.

In all seriousness, I meant no offense about the recipe changing. I tried to find the ingredients a few years ago and then have up because it was tough to find SLS powder. I was finally able to find some this year and it arrived this week. Hoping to mix up the first batch tomorrow.

Morph, since I have your attention, can you confirm that the original recipe is still the best way forward? I think I remember you seeing you post that you've abandoned the Yucca Extract and are just using SLS powder.

I've been reading that others had a tough time with their first batch. One guy who used the original recipe said that his mixture had the consistency of lumpy oatmeal.

I will be sure to wear PPE when mixing the SLS powder. I've heard how irritating that can be.

Thanks again!

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Re: help lawn turned brown after sodium laureth sulfate and yucca extract

Post by PSU4ME » June 13th, 2020, 3:44 pm

21oz per gallon, that’s some slippery grass 😂

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Re: help lawn turned brown after sodium laureth sulfate and yucca extract

Post by Tarank » June 16th, 2020, 11:40 am

PSU4ME wrote:
June 13th, 2020, 3:44 pm
21oz per gallon, that’s some slippery grass 😂
Bubbles coming out of the sprayer?

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MorpheusPA
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Re: help lawn turned brown after sodium laureth sulfate and yucca extract

Post by MorpheusPA » June 16th, 2020, 2:36 pm

Somehow my reply got wiped.

Application of SLS really shouldn't cause yellowing barring a shift of pH to the point where iron and/or nitrogen is getting bound in the soil, or both are being leached by excessive waterlogging. Neither of those should ever happen with any application of anything--SLS's pH is actually quite close to neutral (SLS and SLES vary from 6.5 to 8.5, homemade soap from 8 to 11), that's one of its selling points versus lye-based soap. There's less sting when it gets into your eyes.

So I'm kind of wondering what happened there.

The original recipe is just fine. I've altered the one I'm currently using to sodium lauryl sulfate powder, about 6 oz in 1 gallon water, then using 2 oz per thousand square feet of that as my conditioner. But I can get the powder cheap. And I'm perfectly happy with you using baby shampoo, White Rain shampoo, Suave shampoo (I prefer Mango scent because I like mangos), and a host of other things as well.

If you're getting the idea that a lot of things work perfectly well, you're quite correct. Some just work better than others.

The powder can be nasty to handle, and I've almost gassed myself out of the garage, but the liquids and the already made shampoos are no problem at all, really.

I just did mine today and...well, exceeded normal levels. We're in a dry snap, with heavy thunderstorms expected Thursday evening as a warm front sweeps in, and haven't added anything to the lawn or gardens this year. I went at 9 oz per K on both the kelp and soil conditioner. I have no plans to do this again until at least October.

However, unlike the OP, I diluted that a lot and walked fairly slowly. That wasn't a high concentration, or even 9 oz per gallon, it was 9 oz total per thousand square feet, diluted in close to 30 gallons of water per thousand, so around 3 ounces per gallon per thousand square feet. Most went right into the soil and didn't hang on the grass. If anything, the grass has perked up a little bit from the water.

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Re: help lawn turned brown after sodium laureth sulfate and yucca extract

Post by turf_toes » June 16th, 2020, 8:48 pm

The OP double posted. I think your response is there. I can delete the other thread. But not sure if that makes it worse.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=25917&p=340967#p340967

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Re: help lawn turned brown after sodium laureth sulfate and yucca extract

Post by turf_toes » June 16th, 2020, 8:50 pm


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Re: help lawn turned brown after sodium laureth sulfate and yucca extract

Post by MorpheusPA » June 16th, 2020, 9:13 pm

No biggie. I'm getting confused in my dotage.

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