Drgiles wrote:It's supposed to cover 12k, but I use the whole bag over what I think is about 10k.
To the good doctor, make sure you never read the coverage rates on a bag of fertilizer because they are just meaningless marketing numbers. Always,
always do your own math to see what it covers. "Covers 12,000 feet" is meaningless, because it doesn't define at what rate. If you want 1 lb of N per K, your coverage will be different than someone who wants .5 lbs of N per K. Define the rate, and the coverage calculation is easy. There are some different formulae at the bottom of the
BestLawn Bermuda Guide, but here are a couple examples of what I mean and some food for thought.
Take 100 ÷ N on the bag to get how many pounds of product you should spread to get 1 lb of Nitrogen per thousand on your grass. The Scott's Southern is 32-0-10, so 100 ÷ 32 is basically ~ 3 lbs of Scott's product in
that bag that needs to be spread per thousand to get 1 lb of Nitrogen per K on your lawn. If the bag is 37.5 lbs (3.125 x 12,000 square feet) then 12,000 coverage at 1 lb of N per K is correct. If the bag weighs less than 37.5 lbs, the coverage is less than 1 lb of N per K. Brands like Scotts are always conservative on lbs per K because they don't want people burning their grass.
Another good way to compare apples to apples on prices for Nitrogen in fertilizer is to see how much N is really in the bag. 32-0-10 is 32% N. A 16 lb bag of 32-0-10 at HomeDepot is $15.50. 32% of 16 lbs is 5.12 lbs of Nitrogen in the bag, or $3.03 per pound of N (15.50 ÷ 5.12). Yikes, that's a lot of money for Nitrogen. Apples to apples with Lesco 39-0-0 slow release looks like this: 50 lb bag for $40. 19.5 lbs of N in that bag means the price per pound of N is $2.05 ($40 ÷ 19.5), a whole dollar per pound less, and it's slower release!
Which brings me to this:
hambone79 wrote:Here in Memphis Milorganite is around $12.00/bag. Slow-release synthetic fertilizer of any quality is greater than $40.00/bag. With Milorganite you generally need about 3-4 bags to equal the average analysis of a slow-release synthetic. My math has me paying about the same for either product, the only difference being the added labor of putting out the extra Milo to apply for desired results.
I'm sorry, but I just don't follow that math at all. The analysis of Milo is 5-2-0 and it weighs 36 lbs. That's only 1.8 lbs of N per bag, and at $12 a bag, that's $6.66 per pound of N! So, by my math, you aren't anywhere close to paying the same with either product at all, unless I'm lacking sleep and missing something here. A $40 dollar bag of 39-0-0 would have to cost $130 to match the price of Milo at the same N levels. On DrGiles's 10k yard for 1 lb of N per K, she'd need 200 lbs of Milo or just 25 pounds of 39-0-0. That would cost $20 vs a whopping $66 per app or a difference of $46 per app. Milo is great. So is slow release synthetic. But, by no means are they "roughly" the same price. I don't want to disagree with a 23 year lawn and landscape professional, but what am I missing here?
