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No background… if someone else shows how they do a reel sharpening, probably listen to them… this is just how I do it. I know fertilizer pretty well and plan to be an expert on NTEP data as a few things I think I might be able to offer. I know watering pretty well and other basics. One of my first jobs was in lawn care but on a sloppier commercial basis cleaning up repossessed houses for a bank when I was about 16.

It took me about 25 hours total and I work from home on any schedule I want so it was pretty easy to fit it in. Red thread was hitting all over the place all too often (too much organic matter so the soil doesn’t dry properly). I could have core aerated and flipped with sand multiple times but that would have been a temporary fix that would have probably taken half the time and just as much money for an inferior result. Wife, 3 kids, but we kind of do our own thing for income and start businesses at will for whatever we feel like doing… roughly 4-5 new businesses going in the last 12-16 months and I’m currently siding my house but my hours doing income producing stuff are much less than typical for sure… maybe 10 hours per week ballpark. I should have taken a camera around the lawn before I killed it, but I kind of wanted some shock factor of dead lawn and blowtorch, but, in reality there was a serious issue there and I made up my mind early on that I didn’t want to mess with fungicides… red thread would have hit again and again and again… the repairs would have been never ending or I would have been spraying fungicides every 3 weeks. Other people might think I’m crazy but it was very easy and well worth the time investment in my opinion… total cost was $200 and almost half of that was the peat moss.

It was broke. I fixed it. Those were just the pretty pictures you saw. Wasn’t broke in any of those. And I wouldn’t really call myself an enthusiast. I intentionally do as little as possible while maintaining high standards. I don’t enjoy yard work so I tried to do a similar amount of work as other people. This full renovation took me about 25 hours total which was more time than I’d like it to take but not too big of a deal when spread over five years or so. That’s only five hours of work per year… less poa and less weeds alone will probably recoup this investment for time. You can have whatever standards you want with your own lawn. If there wasn’t a problem I wouldn’t have spent 25 hours fixing that problem and my lawn is already looks established and healthier than my prior lawn just a few weeks in. It doesn’t take years to build a nice lawn… I am mostly done building it… 1 more hours to patch any bare spots with pregerminated seed mixed with the dirt that came out of those areas. The whole point of my channel is to invest time well in the lawn so assuming you know more about the problems in my previous lawn than me is pretty lame. This renovation cost me $200 total for all materials. I spend $12 per year in fertilizer for this lawn. I think I’ll survive starting over.

Watering per evapotranspiration is good… not too much or too little nitrogen (especially during Summer)… minimal organic matter is always good. A quality disease profile in the grass seed will be my main strategy. If I need to I’ll buy a PLUGR core aerator and do that a few times. I’m just not into the maintenance of fungicides. I’m sure they have their place but I decided I was going to figure disease out. Areas w/ too much rain (which is me certain seasons) have more disease pressure… water, heat, organic matter.

Correct.. they don’t contain it but are prone to it. In the 2017-2021 NTEP trial Fireball concluded with 25% poa where Mistique concluded with 0% poa.

@@LawnCareMinimalist Where does it come from if it's not contained in the seed?

​​⁠​​⁠Poa seeds are everywhere… in the dirt… in almost every lawn, golf course, and sports field in the country. Poa annua is extremely prolific for producing seeds, and a 0.00% poa seed count doesn’t mean a 0.0000% seed seed count, so, 1 poa seed per 10,000 seeds would be around 42 poa seeds sown on the small lawn I just did and a single poa plant can produce over 300 seeds per year which would be up to 12,000 poa plants in one year and I’ll let you do the math year 2 :)

Some cultivars are either so extremely competitive that poa can’t even compete or, rye is also know to posses the characteristic of allelopathy at various levels, so essentially it can poison nearby plants (including weeds in many cases).

@@LawnCareMinimalist I'm sorry for questions, but if the the Poa seeds are in the dirt already, then the Mystique seed will have Poa come out as well?

Anything granular to prevent weeds while seeding?

Glyphosate to kill the lawn (often times Round up is not glyphosate and when roundup is glyphosate it is very overpriced compared to other brands… 41% concentrate is what you want). Tenacity right before seeding day or a few days after seeding day. Tenacity keeps most weeds away for about a month which gives the lawn a chance to fill in. The ideal timing for tenacity is a few days before germination because the active ingredient has a limited time window. If you apply glyphosate and tenacity at the same time, most of the days of control during seeding would be wasted. Tenacity is being used in this context as a pre-emergent (preventing future weeds) rather than current weeds and grass that are already there (post-emergent). All cool season grass families except fine fescue is complicated (see page 12 of Tenacity label) are compatible with tenacity so shade mixes should use less tenacity or consider using none at all.

No on the granular. Liquids make sense here.

@@LawnCareMinimalist thank you!! Appreciate your help and you willing to leave full messages! I’m throwing down midnight kbg and bewitched kbg. I know kbg takes a while to germinate but anything to help grow full germination helps

Email me and I can get you a phone number… lawncareminimalist@gmail.com

Decent color in not too terribly long… really nice color hopefully in Spring. The color has already darkened a few shades and the second mow I wanted to do yesterday, but, didn’t get time, so, second mow should be today. I woke up to overcast after the first mow and snapped a picture so I have a pic that looks fairly dark, but, that picture isn’t honest to the real color… I try to only post anything in full sun for RUclips. It’s still too limy for my liking but roughly on par for color with the darkest lawns in my neighborhood (which would be unacceptable if it were it’s mature color because I’m used to a much darker lawn). I get people making bets with their buddies or spouses if my last lawn is real pretty often. Lotta funny moments with delivery drivers and such. Sometimes I’m trying but usually I’m not. I think it’s fun to see it in Spring… after that I’m not as into grass as I used to be, but, still have fairly high standards. I do intend to become an expert on NTEP & seed, so, I’m intending to go the direction of grass seed review & comparison because my opinion is that about 50% of lawn care success is grass seed selection and that step needs to be done either way (but unfortunately that step is normally done by the home builder and grass seed or sod is often picked out based on margin rather than performance). Welcome to the channel, and sorry about the Left/Right camera panning… I wish I had edited that out. More of an audio only episode.

I agree! It’s brutal! I’ll try to never do that panning left to right thing again.

Marysville, WA

iPhone 13… default settings.

I completely agree… it wasn’t as noticeable when I was editing out ums and buts but pretty much unwatchable, so, hopefully people set their phone down & just listen. I’ll try to come up with a better way to ramble for 40 minutes. I’ll probably point the camera at the lawn but then edit in random footage related to whatever I’m talking about so that panning thing will get edited out, but having the lawn on screen helps me reference from one thought to the next.

Yeah, red thread isn’t super destructive but it’s just unnecessary and annoying. Despite my undesirable organic matter I think I can figure out disease w/o fungicides and I feel like this has very high likelihood at success.

So, for some reason this grass (also called PST-2ETS during testing phase) was never submitted/sponsored for NTEP trial but I have reason to believe it probably isn’t great. A marketing sheet generally represents the best characteristics of a grass and they didn’t have much to rave about for this grass… for example they placed the gray leaf spot at 5.2 via a different review platform where Mystique was a 7.7 on NTEP for that disease. And they highlighted a drought test as their other brag, but, the result looks to be middle of the pack and these genetics are 10 years old which also isn’t a great sign. Normally Twin City has half way decent stuff and I guess time will tell, but it’s probably a small step up from JB at Lowes as an approximate guess for quality or it might even be on par with the best Lowes seed (which is good enough to meet the typical home owner’s expectations, but probably not nearly as good as it could be). Most seeds are published on NTEP… this one wasn’t.

Yeah, consider it audio only… I completely agree.

Man, those are like my two least favorite popular rye grasses. I almost seeded Bareenbrug RPR in 2021… I even bought a bag (and returned it)… that’s how close I got. I was also looking for Fireball at one point simply because I didn’t look at NTEP close enough. I’m glad you think it was good… I feel like I should have a disclaimer about how boring and unappealing the video portion is! It’s basically audio only. Video of my freshwater aquarium or even paint drying while I talk would probably be more entertaining but I think there is a lot of value in the info.

No website yet. Pricing through email currently. I need to discern demand before I go get another batch of it this year. The ideal seeding window has passed for most people. Lawncareminimalist@gmail.com

Website should be up mid to late this week.

@@LawnCareMinimalist awesome thank you

Going live tomorrow around noon Pacific time.

Distilled water… ideally out of a jug with more crinkly harder plastic.

I’d probably kill my lawn and plant when soil temps dip to 70° around the end of next Summer & plant KBG (which tolerates cold well). If your area never gets to that soil temp I’d germinate KBG about 1 month before soil temps are expected to peak (most likely about 2 weeks after the longest day). I plan to research KBG at some point, but, haven’t thus far. Rye doesn’t do cold and even KBG might struggle at your temps. I’d check Winter kill on NTEP.org > previous data > KBG Low Intput (or KBG High Input) > 2018-2022 Data Final Report You could also take note of NTEP drought testing on the 35 varieties of KBG’s and fescue’s currently being tested. Drought testing has some relevance to Winter kill.

@@LawnCareMinimalist thank you so much!

Two clarifications (one related to my bad wording on the prior message)… I’d probably plant KBG at that soil temp schedule but start torching the lawn over and over for months leading up to seeding (because I’m guessing glyphosate is banned there). Seeding day around a 70° soil temp would be ideal for KBG. And it’s worth mentioning that watching KBG establish I’ve heard is like watching a sloth… it won’t be in a hurry to fill in… 10% rye could help the lawn look established and reduce erosion and drainage issues in those first months… most of the rye would probably croak in Winter anyway and even if it didn’t the KBG should choke out and outcompete all the rye within a few years. I’d actually look for an inferior PRG for the rye portion that had a high poa % and poor dye off, so, Hattrick would probably be ideal for the 10% if you want more dye off… or Fireball if you want allelopathy to a minimum. You could also go a different route and do a quality rye for the 10% portion and it might actually survive (which might actually be a pro rather than a con for color and striping ability). After chewing on it while I type I guess it wouldn’t hurt if the rye did manage to survive, but, I don’t know that it would be worth spending the extra $30 or whatever on quality rye because the KBG will probably dominate anyway. I do plan to become an expert on KBG also in these upcoming months and essentially start reviewing various grass seed via sat analysis, so, stay tuned if you want a KBG recommendation, but, currently I don’t know KBG cultivars at all, but expect to know them well around December/January as a guesstimate.

I wonder if some water might be lost into the ground before the roots can get it because the soil wasn’t holding water in that cup… waiting for the cups to dry out then I might do more of a longer shape and apply water to one side only and test for water distribution and water holding/drying properties.

Of the 7, it’s the only one that still has water in it (currently 39 hours later). Yes, I’m very surprised as well. I’ll be curious to observe dry down properties and such. All soils intentionally very compacted.

It has to be a lot lower risk of tip burn with the TTI tip. Huge droplets maximize the chances of drops rolling off the leaves, so TeeJet recommends the TTI (among others) for soil application. There’s one tip with larger droplets but it sprays at the wrong angle for hand application. I don’t see the point in getting too cute with a foliar N application (wouldn’t you need to do really low rates like .1#N?)… think about the design of a plant. Roots are designed to take up nutrients. I don’t think I’ve experienced tip burn and my back lawn I do at lower carrier volume than would normally be recommended for N concentration with no issues and I don’t necessary always apply before rain in the back. In the front I at least want the ground damp or have it be actively raining even if a light sprinkle. I did water fertilizer in once this year because I wasn’t paying attention and my application was getting late, but my go to is just pay a little attention to the weather and simply apply in the rain. If you’re going to not water in an application the TTI would be the tip… also less drift. It’s designed for soil application. The XR tips is one of the last tips I’d use because it nearly maximizes drift and maximizes foliar contact… the larger the droplet the better, and the XR is almost as fine as TeeJets get. The finest tip I personally use (including weed control in the back) is the DG, but I only consider that tip suitable in zero wind, and I don’t think I’ve done an intentional foliar application in over a year with the exception of an iron test I did on half of my front lawn.

Thanks for the reply. The reason I asked was because I am not getting results as expected from foliar spraying, and would like to switch to soil amendment spraying. When I sprayed, I spoonfed at 0.10lb N/K on two Saturdays back to back, and then 0.20lb N/K the Saturday after. So, in total, 0.40lb N/K over three weeks. There is a section in back which hasn't woken up from April 9th Scotts Halts Lawn Food fertilizer. So I decided to do an experiment by spreading 10-10-10 over one sqft area. That one sqft area green up and thickened up within a week, but the area around it, even after spraying 0.40lb N/K, had little change. Which to me indicates that foliar is only good for growing existing, green grass, and the primary feeding is done through roots. When do you usually spray the back if you aren't watering it in right away? How far ahead do you look for rain, within a couple of hours, or that night, or the next day?

I prefer that it’s raining when I’m spraying… that way there’s no guessing at the weather. I plan to spray when rain is very likely (AccuWeather app) but I typically don’t spray until the grass is damp or it’s already raining… that way I don’t need to consider carrier volume at all. I’m often applying about 1/2#N, so to do .2#N/gallon on 6K’ would be 15 gallons of water to get 1/2# of N down… even .01” of rain over 6K’ is the equivalent of 37 gallons + 4 gallons in the backpack, so that’s more than double what would be required for carrier volume to prevent tip burn even if I were using a foliar tip rather than the TTI11004. So, applying in mild rain is my go to now a days… I think I have applied in the back regardless of rain before, but I think I’d just be patient as the current way I’m doing things… it isn’t going to get into the soil without a little water anyway and I’m generally not going to bother watering my back lawn other than to prevent death from drought stress in Sumer. As for the 10-10-10 experiment… are you a warm season lawn near Florida and do you know your soil Sulfur? Also, let me check your math real quick on how much nitrogen might have been applied to that 1 square foot… to apply a full 1/2 pound of nitrogen to that 1 sq ft would be only 2.27 grams of 10-10-10 and most people don’t own a microgram scale and 1/2# of N is more than you were applying anywhere else… if you only applied about .1#N from the 10-10-10 (.45 grams or 1/1000th of a pound of product) than you could make some judgements. Near Florida phosphorus deficiency occasionally happens, and if the potassium in the 10-10-10 would also have sulfur in it… if your sulfur is below about 10PPM nitrogen won’t do anything. One soil test per address (Google “turf extension office near me”) I often recommend just to verify that no deficiency exists. You can pretty much ignore potassium on your soil test unless you’re in a very cold area that gets near 0° in Winter. For cold areas you want potassium around 70PPM Mehlich-3. Potassium can rarely benefit a lawn by being attached to Sulfur, but only if sulfur is unusually low, and phosphorus can be needed for growth as well but I normally only see phosphorus deficiency on Saint Augustine grass in Florida… lots of rain, lots of sand (depleted soil), and a demanding grass seem to all be necessary to have a chance at phosphorus deficiency… I don’t really know any of that context for you. So, with the 10-10-10, you might have applied more N than you thought you did. Foliar and root are both fine at the rates you’ve been applying, but root has a lot less volatility (loss to the air) and root can gone applied in larger amounts which means less time in the lawn. For max performance I used to spoon feed every 10 days with a soil application for my front lawn, and with that I didn’t need to worry about rain because a heavy application would only be about .2#N on 2.4K’ so only 2.4 gallons of water would be needed to have no risk of tip burn (for urea .2#N per gallon, for AMS closer to .1#N per gallon, for a 1-1-1 + micros, even more water would be needed). What city? And how much fertilizer did you apply to 1 square foot? Any idea because you might have applied more N than you were aiming to apply. If you have a soil test that you didn’t mail in water (AKA a real soil test) you can email that to me at ‘ask me anything lawn care at gmail’. One soil test per lawn per address sent to local extension office (“turf extension office near me” per Google) is what I generally recommend… doing soil tests all the time or doing mail in water tests that try to sell fertilizer rather than try to be accurate (YM/Mysoil/SoilSavy, etc) I don’t believe in. But, low phos (rare) or low Sulfur or Low Magnesium as well as pH… I care some about those 3 nutrients on a soil test. A 10-10-10 would have phosphorus and it would have sulfur (potassium sulfate… AKA sulfate of potash) unless it was a cheaper product like Lilly Miller (which is potassium chloride).

@@LawnCareMinimalist Thanks for the reply, and sorry for getting back to you later as I was a bit busy. Never had a soil test done, as I think the soil conditions and materials change with rain and season so it will be fruitless unless multiple tests are done on an yearly basis per season. Probably better for farmers. For now, I am going to switch away from spraying, even though I have only sprayed urea three times, twice at 0.10lb N/K and once at 0.20lb N/K. What I will doing instead will be spoonfeeding AMS at 1lb per 1K every two weeks using a handheld spreader (I might get a Wizz). Obviously, this will be only done if the grass is green and growing. I can spoonfeed easily after a mow and should finish in less than 10 minutes. Spraying would take me at least an hour in setting up, spraying, and cleaning, etc. Not to mention I am limited by how much nitrogen I can spray at one go due to risk of tip burn, and have to worry about weather, rain, etc. Lowe's had 40lb AMS on sale for $15 so I picked up two bags and hope that will be enough for this year.

Not currently… just good watering and I have way too much organic so I do see some pink patch or red thread when I really shouldn’t (both are low nitrogen preferring diseases) or it’s possible my cultivars are just susceptible to it but those diseases can happen when it just won’t stop raining - especially in uneven spots lacking soil. Pink patch is a mild temp disease and that’s when it rains here. Summer disease pressure is low in my area as long as people don’t water at night or something (my neighbor keeps killing his yard) so I really haven’t spent any money on fungicide other than a stupid Ron Henry purchase a few years back, but pink patch can be a little annoying. I’m trying to figure out that issue without products because those aren’t diseases likely to take out the whole lawn over night and usually I have some control over the water. Deep waterings seem to be the thing that really stirs the pot there, and the disease prefers spots without slope that are lacking soil, and with high organic matter everything aligns with poor drainage as a main player. My current fungus program is try to slowly undo the compost mistake I made with my soil tied to my organic matter issue (bagging should help over time), and if I pay attention to my water I think I can solve it without products. I’d like to core aerate and fill w/ sand, but I don’t like renting so I’d want to own an aerator and I want the reciprocating PLUGR style so I’m waiting for a deal on a used one. I owned one a few years back but sold it. Didn’t really see any disease while I owned that. My organic matter isn’t too crazy in my back lawn despite being high, so I think one of my cultivars is susceptible to pink patch. The disease profiles don’t fully fit my lawn as a typical risk for those diseases except temp and heavy rain for my area align with pink patch disease pressure and my lawn does have way too much organic, so it’s either the carbon holding too much water or the cultivars or a little of both. My back lawn is managed totally different but also is high in organic so seeing pink patch back there last year was a pretty helpful data point… both lawns got overwatered once (pre vacation in front lawn, accidentally left sprinkler on overnight in back lawn… so… 8” of water probably) and after that was the first time I saw it and both lawns saw Prodiamine for the first time around then (which isn’t likely to be related) and both lawns share a cultivar (I believe I’ve only seen pink patch attack my Hattrick plants)… too much organic in both lawns… uneven unsloped areas preferred by pink patch and red thread hits the exact same little spots in my front sometimes but basically the issue isn’t bad enough to care much about but every once in a while it bugs me (even if no one else seems to notice it). My back lawn gets lower nitrogen, is mowed higher, has totally different dirt, is barely watered in drought, etc. The commonalities are few, but organic matter and Hattrick are a few things that are shared in both lawns to some extent… pink patch isn’t a common disease where I am, but neither is rye grass… most likely organic matter, but could be grass type or low spots lacking soil near roots (which could cause stunted growth) still figuring it out. I even noticed a few purple blades of grass with phosphorus deficiency in the main area where I see pink patch, so leveling could be all it takes to get rid of it and maybe rather than the disease preferring low nitrogen the disease might just prefer low growth, so leveling should fix the likelihood of low localized phos (I have plenty of phos and I’ve never seen phos deficiency except those 4 or 5 blades of grass, so it was either no roots or not enough dirt around those roots because it was clear that the problem wasn’t the dirt. I’d get familiar with fungicides if I had a more aggressive fungus to contend with but rain and heat don’t happen at the same time where I am aside from user error (such as watering at night). Some areas need some fungicide, but I also think a lot of lawns simply need more attention to detailing in the water or drainage. I’m in a Facebook group and almost every time when someone had a disease issue they were watering totally wrong, but sometimes 4” of water just fell, but I’d say roughly 3 out of 4 times I saw major fungus issues the person was watering completely wrong. If I knew what I was doing when I planted my lawn or if my back lawn wasn’t so thoroughly neglected in the past my organic matter would be lower and I don’t think I’d have any disease, but I’m glad the diseases I see are relatively minor. I’ve only been carefully observing and being intentional about managing that issue for the last 18 months or so, so I’m still gathering data. I think leveling more than anything would do a lot of good for me. Proper watering is the biggest thing most people can do… after that, soil air, reduced OM, and fungicide if rain doesn’t cooperate. Some diseases like low nitrogen, and some like high nitrogen. Ironically I mostly see low nitrogen diseases in my higher nitrogen front lawn. High organic matter is the biggest mistake I think I made in my front lawn and I wish NTEP would test for pink patch resistance, but they can’t test every disease. Oh yeah… genetics. You could overseed a grass that is bred for resistance to whatever disease hits hardest there and just let the less competitive grass die. Or to take it a step further either stress the existing grass as much as possible prior to overseed or even do a full renovation and upgrade genetics if the lawn isn’t too large. My rotoscissors vs. edger video actually does go into proper watering a little, or proper watering is covered in the description of this video a little, but if excess rain is happening during heat a product can become more necessary. Rey Ito of The Grass Factor manages turf in Hawaii so he knows his way around fungicides (and chemicals in general)… 3336F is his preferred when it hits the fan application to have on hand if things really go sideways. I’m the wrong guy to ask about fungicides. There is actually quite a bit of disease in many lawns in my area, but lack of mowing and lack of fertilizer is also common.

@@LawnCareMinimalist I appreciate the long, detailed response. It’s good to think through all this stuff. I have propiconazole and azoxystrobin that I use only if we are getting inundated with rain in the north east. We have been getting a lot of rain lately, so I will likely need to use these products in the near future.

@@flipster1449you can also check the 2 most common diseases that are common for your grass type and check the triggers for those diseases. Brown patch for example is obviously common on tall fescue and generally that is days above 85°, nights above 65° for 5 consecutive days with high humidity or rainfall, and things like thatch and a lower cut and proper watering frequency and watering time of day can help a lot, but disease is certainly a thing. My disease pressure is lowest when it’s hot or cold… for some people they need to be mindful of snow mold while others see pythium and brown patch, so there seem to be diseases for every climate. Addressing the heavy hitters would make sense and try to understand those diseases well so you can time things right and application pH would be worth looking into. Fungicides are often sensitive to carrier pH.

Well thanks. Glad you got something out of it. A few statements were overstated (pre-emergent root pruning as an example which I just meant when improperly applied as inspired by something a neighbor did and basically half nuked his lawn with ‘if some is good, more is better’ but there is one undesirable side effect I think could be related to properly applied prodiamine but my confidence is too low in the theory to draw any attention to it). Or, a few mentions were understated (like the fact that it actually can be very valuable to do a quality soil test once on each lawn, just not a crappy one), but overall I was happy enough with that first and only take with about a minute of ums (and similar) edited out. I got a few haters, but not bad at all… they keep things interesting and I generally try to match their tone and feed it right back to them by hopefully arguing the possibility that they could be wrong or their expectations for my channel are unrealistic, but that might not be the most productive thing… My plan is to knock out some low effort videos because I just had an idea that turned out actually taking effort and those videos might teach me something but they’re also much more involved and I could probably do 10 easy videos for every difficult to execute idea. My next longer video about self pH testing told people if they want less of me in their feed to do a thumbs down, and I told a lady in the comments doing a thumbs down would help RUclips direct others that think like her away from my channel (which would be a service to them), so I told her she should, haha. Yeah, I trust the algorithm as odd as that sentence might sound. RUclips is trying to find an audience for anyone (if there’s an audience out there YT gets more add revenue finding it), but, I agree… if there isn’t value there are a lot of options out there and people are on RUclips for value and basically value alone… education, entertainment, etc. They are choosing to watch any given thing for that reason almost exclusively… some sort of value.

Pacific NW. Washington state. Easy place to grow grass compared to most but very few people try.

@@LawnCareMinimalist how does one get a reel mower?

Rolux and Reel Rollers Revololution seem to be the better budget options and I’d steer clear of Cal-Trimmer, McClane, and Tru-Cut. I like wide stripes (I mow doubles) so for Rolux I’d want the 25”… 6-blade, Honda engine, grooved front roller accessory wouldn’t be considered optional. The Rolux height of cut goes to 1-3/8” max. The Revolution looks nicer to me in terms of features and quality, but here’s a link for both brands, but the front roller on the Revolution would need to be upgraded… no way that will do a higher cut well where the Rolux would. myrolux.com/products/rolux-x25-25-reel-mower-briggs-and-stratton-xr550 reelrollers.com/product/revolution-26/ If you feel like lighting some money on fire, I have the Allett Stirling… the build quality isn’t terrible but it also isn’t great, but if you have the money it has some features I probably wouldn’t want to give up (removable reel washes easy, tine scarifier cartridge, verticut cartridge, battery, easy height of cut mechanism). The cartridges aren’t really necessary, but they do achieve better stripes and improve texture some and remove a little debris here and there so easily but I certainly wouldn’t say they are necessary… they are icing on the cake. Skip the dethatch cartridge… the Stirling is too flimsy to handle it. The brush is a waste of money and there’s no way the aeration cartridge does much of anything. My Stirling was #4 on the list so I was on the list long before they announced it. There are a few engineering oversights for it, but overall there isn’t currently another option like it. I would recommend transporting the Sterling on the front roller and trying to keep the rear roller off concrete, so, I’d baby the rear roller and keep it free of clay because it will wedge up underneath and ruin the rear roller which isn’t a cheap part (don’t ask me how I know)… it shouldn’t need to be babied at the Sterling price point, but what can you do. There’s nothing wrong with a really sharp blade on a rotary mower in terms of grass health (All American style blade sharpener + grinder + 80G flap disc sharpens a blade in about 5 minutes), but even with a striping kit the looks of a rotary mower just aren’t the same. I think most people would probably see the Rolux as the best value. For the Sterling the mower cartridge needs to be installed during backlapping and for the cut test but not very many people will want to spend on any reel mower, much less a Stirling… grass was a hobby a few years back, and I generally go all out with whatever I’m into at the time. If you want a high cut like cool season pro baseball, all of these mowers go up to at least 1-3/8” which isn’t true with a lot of brands… lower cuts need to be mowed every other day min. Most of the other brands have other pretty serious issues for user friendliness and many of them don’t go up very high for cut height. For any brand you’d probably want a low blade count blade (like a 6-blade) which is more suitable for a higher cut. Cutting low means 3x more mowing, potential traffic stress & potential compaction from needing to mow all the time, and crappy color in comparison to a higher cut, so any model that won’t go high for cut is a deal breaker for me. If you get something used it will probably be cheap but it is also likely to be a huge headache and potential waste of time vs. some of the less lemony brands. I bought a $300 old Tru-Cut to dip my toe in the water of reel mowing and the thing was just a disaster every time I used it and I was lucky if I didn’t go a mow without a new issue and I rarely went a mow without the thing randomly dying, but I think generally Tru-Cut is better than Cal Trimmer and I’ve pretty much only heard bad about McClane. I’m not sure if I’d recommend the Rolux or the Revolution in the budget slot (although neither is necessarily cheap)… the Revolution front roller just isn’t going to cut it (litterally) for higher cuts, so you’d need to see if a front roller with more hollowing were available or that one would be a no go for me. Revolution is probably made in Asia somewhere… Rolux is at least assembled in the USA… Allett is made in the UK but EGO does the battery and handle assembly so much of the Sterling is probably manufactured in China. I’m not sure if that is helpful or not but these are the 3 mowers I’d consider… the more spent, the more enjoyable it might be to use, but the wide cut on the cheaper brands would be nice, but easily pulling and washing the Sterling blade and the battery and cartridge system of the Sterling does add a lot of value, but the price point is totally different for the Allett. Hopefully that is helpful… these might all be too expensive because they cost a good amount more than a rotary mower but those are my thoughts for now.

@@LawnCareMinimalist this is fantastic information, thank you!

Who am I bashing here? The only reference I made to anyone else was a reference to height of cut and a distinction between a crappy soil test and a good one… height of cut is a difference of preference and it’s also a huge difference in mowing requirement. And the video doesn’t say 10 things you should do (although it might be implied)… it says copy me if you want, and I didn’t even say 100% of lawns don’t need P or K, but yes, please watch someone else. I said pre emergents haven’t worked for me… I didn’t say that I don’t recommend them for warm season and I also said plainly that I’m a cool season guy that knows very little about warm season and I wouldn’t consider my opinions of pre emergents settled… that’s just what I do and people can “copy me if they want” and if any of my methods don’t work in their area, they can uncopy me. CRAPY soil tests don’t matter… I like GOOD SOIL TESTS… maybe you didn’t notice the qualifier in that sentence of “LOW QUALITY soil tests” and I immediately gave an example of a low quality soil test. Maybe you should turn up the volume because you’re overlooking the details. I could absolutely be wrong about pre-emergents but I think they do more harm than good in my particular lawn in my particular climate, and I gave people an option that might work if they have a small lawn… in my larger back lawn I prefer post emergent applications (not a pocket knife). This was my first and only take. If you think you can do better you are welcome to start your own channel. This was a briefing in what I do… I intend to get a lot more nuanced and detailed topic by topic on future videos… for example, about a week later my very next video gave recommendations for how to find a quality soil lab and it showed people how to accurately test their own soil pH, so I wouldn’t call that anti soil test. On my soil test from an extremely reputable lab they recommended both phos and potassium when I when I wasn’t even close to needing any and potassium especially isn’t free of consequence to add when it isn’t needed, and this was a very detailed lab that I would expect to be more sound than most in terms of recommendation… how many labs are owned by companies that sell fertilizer with brand specific recommendations that come with the soil test. Very scientific. Yes, some areas need different nutrients than others. But, I think most people would be surprised how few lawns would look worse on pure nitrogen but I agree that it isn’t every lawn which is why I didn’t say every lawn. In my video I said “spend some time on NTEP and select grasses THAT ARE APPROPRIATE FOR YOUR AREA”… did I say “plant rye in Texas”? You’re right that I’m lucky to have rye… RUclips doesn’t allow edits but I’ll certainly point that out in future videos that rye doesn’t make sense in most areas, but if someone asks anything related to grass seed in the comments I make sure to say it there… this was one 15 minute take edited down to 14 minutes (uns and breaths removed). People can watch me if they want. They can test something I do in their lawn if they want. They can observe if anything bad happens and adapt as they see fit if my advice betrays them… you’re acting like the world is going to end. It’s grass. Thanks for pointing out that the sun has everything to do with stripes… I knew that… I just didn’t want people to think my lawn has that color from every angle all the time, but my wording and tone was aimed at showing people a less perfect view as well to be more realistic about what they were looking at… I pointed out the uneven spots… I tell people my back lawn is held to a lower standard. Bashing others? MySoil deserves it… other than that I don’t know what you’re talking about with that mention. Height of cut is preference. If someone loves mowing then a 1/2” cut might make sense for that person but cool season baseball is cut around 1-3/8” average, and that’s what I copy for my mowing practices because I like low work and good color… I mentioned spoon feeding not being for me, but it actually is a superior practice, but my aim is to do as little as possible and still have a very high quality lawn. How is it bashing anyone to say that I don’t spoon feed? I said exactly why I don’t spoon feed… I never said it was inferior to do it (it’s superior in terms of performance). I do think many practices that are pushed on RUclips don’t look as good while costing more money, & taking more time… if that offends people to hear those opinions they can find someone that perfectly aligns with their cozy biases to their liking. Enjoy the bias. We all have them. You can start a RUclips channel and provide better quality content than me if you choose or you can do a thumbs down and that will put less of me in your feed and that will also be a service to people that think similarly to yourself. How dare I say something you disagree with or not say everything perfectly… the nerve. I’m not an articulate person and RUclips doesn’t allow edits. There are lots of opinions in lawn care and lots of people acting like so much is at stake to get every detail right. “Trying to bash others”. I didn’t name any channels… I said the word trendy, and I acknowledged that my practices are different… people can do whatever they want with that. Spoon feeding is better than what I do (if people don’t place any value on their time) and there’s nothing wrong with low cut turf (if people like mowing or really really really don’t value their time and don’t mind traffic wear and bad color). Do whatever you want. Bashing others. Yeah, I’m sure they’d be crying to hear that someone else doesn’t do exactly what they do. The only people that think alike in lawn care are the people that sell the same products and soil scientists align on the other end of the spectrum. I don’t mind copying the best looking turf and I don’t mind offending people that are too easily offended. I place little value on manufactured victimhood. People can do what they want.

Don't get caught up in negativity. Thank you for the video. Obviously, it is working for you as one can see from the results. Maybe we can all learn something from this.

Yeah, I’m happy enough with how my wording allowed for exceptions in the video (some people do need P or K or pre -emergents). I recommend P or K for specific individuals when I see deficiency, but deficiency is so uncommon that most people don’t even know what phosphorus deficiency looks like in turf (lots of eyes in a huge Facebook group) which can be a very obvious thing. I agree with some critics that my wording could have been better on certain topics but obviously I didn’t agree with this critic at all. My nature is to punch back and I think I just didn’t appreciate the bashing others comment and if not for that I probably would have had more grace in my response. I also didn’t appreciate her calling Matt Martin a liar. Matt Martin’s bend is toward integrity. He is wrong some in my opinion, but a liar knows they are being untruthful and that isn’t him.

I just recommended a humic and kelp product to someone a few days ago for a specific situation (if you’re referring to my mention of humic acid). And Matt Martin is smarter than you. @TheGrassFactor I disagree with Matt Martin occasionally but one thing he is not is a liar so you can keep your Pinocchio nose.

I’m cool season and get zero of either grass in my lawn despite the fact that it does go kinda crazy on the sidewalks in my neighborhood… I don’t think it’s real competitive in my climate because I rarely even see it in poorly kept lawns and even less goose grass. I would probably own 24% dithiopyr if I were warm season or transition zone over prodiamine during warm season weed germination because there are some heavy hitters like Lespedeza and Southern crab and Dallis grass seeds and Carolina geranium that aren’t on the prodiamine label. I get so little crab anything that it’s possible that my rye poisons it but it’s more likely that it simply isn’t competitive here except on the sidewalks because crappy lawns and nice lawns alike get nearly zero crab. Mild Summers here. I’m the wrong guy for that question (or most transition zone or warm season questions). I intend to do a dithiopyr vs. prodiamine video at some point but it will mostly just be expanding out how they are different because I likely would be on team pre emergent in many areas and I should have mentioned that in this video. Clover and poa annua are the heavy hitters I see in my lawn. Clover isn’t on the prodiamine label and it’s not on the dithiopyr label. Poa is on the prodiamine label but I timed it right above 6 grams 65% and saw no discernible difference (9 gram rate) so post emergents in my back and pocket knife in my front make sense for the weeds I get. I get almost no moss… no dandelions… pretty much just annua and clover and a little hairy bittercress and yellow wood sorrel. None of the warm season weeds… poa annua is brutal hear… it’s a perennial in my climate so it survives and produces a crap ton of seeds all year. Zero poa policy in the front. In the back, sometimes I take it out and sometimes I don’t.

@@LawnCareMinimalist Interesting. I live in MN which is cool season and it grows like a weed up here. We are on the border of ND and MN.

Yeah, your Summers aren’t bad at all assuming your climate is similar to Minneapolis… that is interesting. Hmmm… My best guess is that your temps give a lot of winter kill and therefore more open dirt than my area because your Summers look a lot like mine for temps. With this small amount of info I’d consider Spring overseeding as a possible strategy to try if you haven’t already, or consider bluegrass possibly since it does pretty well in cold and also self thickens. Do you know if fescues are dominant there or if it’s dominantly KBG? Sliding a blade through the fingers in the tip to stalk direction will be just a little grippy with tall fescue and it generally has distinct parallel veining… fine fescue has a notably fine blades that look similar to baby grass… bluegrass is buttery smooth when slid through the fingers in the tip to stalk direction. Perhaps try tow walk some neighborhoods and see if there is any crabgrass in KBG lawns or see if you can find lawns that don’t have it and see if there’s something different about those lawns. I know your winters are cold, but if KBG would survive and there’s local evidence that KBG might mostly solve the issue, an August overseed might survive and be much better established vs. a Spring overseed… soil temps would give a seeding window delay in your area and KBG doesn’t establish overnight. Just a few ideas to check to see if there’s anything to the idea. Your Summers are almost identical to mine, but your Winters are where a huge distinction can be made. Our Summers are extremely dry here, so for a second I thought that might explain why there’s little crab in the most neglected lawns here, but it happily grows on our sidewalks where there’s presumably even less favorable conditions in terms of water, so Winter kill is the only distinction I can make between your climate and mine. I’m not sure if there’s anything there, but, if there is, I’d be keeping my potassium just above 70PPM and also consider overseeding with Winter hardy grasses… cold tolerance I believe is measured on NTEP, but if it is I’ve never looked at it, but I bet it’s there for seed selection.

I’m in Washington State. I should have said this in this video, but rye wouldn’t be a good idea hardly anywhere in the USA other than the Pacific NW. In most areas I’d recommend anything else because disease, heat stress, and cold stress will all kill rye more than other grasses. My cultivars are about 50-60% Hattrick, and 40-50% Pangea (not as dark but good disease resistance)… if I were to seed tomorrow I’d try to source Mystique and ASP0116. ASP0116 is darker in my area, 94% as good of turf quality, and just a little less poa after 4 years and Mystique was 0% poa after 4 years, 95% of the color of Hattrick for my area (very good) with much better turf quality and much better traffic tolerance. Ranking of grass families (rather than cultivars is below): Drought tolerance: TTTF, FF, PRG, KBG Heat tolerance: TTTF, FF, KGB, PRG Cold Tolerance: KBG, TTTF/FF, PRG Shade tolerance: FF, TTTF, PRG, (RPR*), KBG Traffic tolerance: (RPR*), TTTF, KBG, PRG, FF Self repairing: KBG, (RPR)… minimal for TTTF, or FF… no stollens for PRG Ease of establishment (germination thru maturity): PRG, TTTF, FF, KBG Looks: PRG, KBG, (RPR*), TTTF, FF (my opinion) Feel: KBG, FF, PRG, TTTF Seed Heads: TTTF, FF, KBG, PRG = awful! Visual texture (novice or experienced caretaker): PRG, KBG, TTTF, FF Visual texture (expert caretaker): KBG, PRG, TTTF, FF Stripe definition: PRG, KBG, TTTF, FF Color Potential (depends heavily on cultivar, but in general): PRG, KBG, (RPR*), TTTF, FF RPR = Regenerative Perennial Ryegrass A few important notes when selecting a grass family (if you’re in the mood to read): KBG is about 20 days to germination and a full year to establish (this could mean shallow roots in Winter and/or Summer), so seeding KBG is not a task that should be taken lightly… even if it germinates that doesn’t mean it will necessarily survive shallow roots in Winter/Summer. Rye doesn’t do well with hot Summers or cold Winters so PRG is not a great idea in the transition zone and KBG is questionable in much of the transition zone (especially if unirrigated). The most expensive thing in lawn care is cheap grass seed. If you don’t want to do research on specific cultivars on NTEP for rated traits of each of the hundreds of cultivar options at least look for 0% weed seed… typically the decent cultivars will have 0% weed seed in the bag since that demonstrates that the brand actually cares what they are selling you. You can expect to pay noticeably more for 0% weed seed bags but that higher cost long term is nothing compared to what poor genetics and extra weeds will cost you long term. Kentucky 31 is a weed and should not be considered for a lawn (it was popular 50 years ago)… be careful when buying turf type tall fescue not to accidentally buy tall fescue. Turf type designates a thinner blade. Fine Fescue prefers about half as much nitrogen vs. other cool season grasses and it is extremely low maintenance and the king in dense shade. For any “dense shade” mix, be careful that the seed list doesn’t intentionally have poa trivialis in the bag because some dense shade mixes do! Fine fescue looks sloppy at times. Tall fescue requires a higher cut to look nice. KBG can be reel cut low and rye can be reel cut low but color is much better above 1” and traffic is also greatly reduced when reel cut at 1”+ for KBG & Rye (1/3 rule happens quick at 1/2” so lots of traffic). * RPR is a Barrenbrug owned genetically altered stoloniferous cultivar of PRG that has crappy color but is bagged with 2 other cultivars with decent color. It is amazing in traffic applications and not just because of the spreading nature. With enough traffic like dogs it’s quick establishment trait can be worth considering in mild climates, but be warned that the cultivar in the bag that is most competitive also has Lowes grade color, so the color will fade over time. Incredible traffic tollerance and pretty low maintenance but cost about double what elite varieties cost and is inferior in many ways. In a 25# bag, 1/2 of the weight is seed coating that you’re paying for, 1/6 of the bag is the RPR cultivar, and 1/3 of the bag is traffic selected cultivars with better color presumably designed to hide the crappy color of the RPR cultivar so the lawn at least looks nice at first.

@LawnCareMinimalist thanks for info. Not many people will go into detail like you did. I really appreciate it. Right now I'm struggling with the decision on what I want to seed with in the fall. I live in Virginia in the transition zone and I like a shorter HOC of like 2" but my TTTF is struggling. I don't have a reel mower so going with Rye at an inch isn't in the cards for me. I love the dark color of the Hat Trick + Fireball. Does anything come close to that color that would work in the transition zone?

The person to ask is probably Ryan DeMay. Bluegrass is super thirsty and I don’t know if it would survive your temps and disease pressure or not, but if it’s an option there are some varieties that get a lot closer to competing with rye for color, especially if you like that lower height of cut. I’ve also seen some fescue cultivars that look nice color wise reel cut at 1.5” so either a different cultivar or a razor sharp blade might do a lot, and the 1/3 rule means cutting when grass gets no taller than 3” ideally. Cutting below the crown is not something any grass is fond of, but many grass types can be trained. See if DeMay will answer your email, or, Ryan Knorr’s grass seed may be expensive, but he’s in the transition zone and he’s crazy enough to do rye. I’d imagine he’s in a more suitable area than you and he’s kinda crazy to do that… but… his bluegrass might be worth testing in a test plot because chances are pretty good he specifically selected very intentional cultivars that are more likely to do well for you… more of a late Summer (like August) seeding comes with a little risk, but I think it would probably be worth it if seeding bluegrass. Groundskeeper 2 rake. 1/3 of seed, drag rake hard, 1/3 of seed, drag rake with medium pressure, 1/3 of seed, drag rake lightly. This is good washout insurance and ideally try not to seed when there’s a chance of 2”+ days on bare dirt and a soil surfactant (wetting agent) can also be good insurance for wash out during seeding by helping the water get into the ground quickly. It’s easier to nuke 500’ or test in 100’ sections than it is to test if something will work on your whole lawn, so time may be better spent with one year of experimentation at your best guesses at what would do well and a year of patience watching. Ryan at field source Ohio dot com… pretty sure he’d have good advice for you especially if you give him some a few concise details (watering practices, specific city, etc. because he’d want to eyeball the exact climate). I plan to one day maybe have time to answer questions similar to what I would do in your shoes, but I’m not confident it will be any time soon if at all, but DeMay is a field advisor by profession in the transition zone, so he would be more likely to be able to help… also, consider calling your local turf extension office… Google “turf extension office near me” and they might know what grasses sports fields are using. Water would be very notable with Bluegrass, so keep that in mind if you’re thinking of going that route.

Makes sense in the garden… I don’t agree in the lawn, but everyone gets to vote on their own property what they want to do and how they want to do it. If that’s the way you like to do things, great. Lawn for me is just something I enjoy seeing how good I can make it look with as little effort as possible. I think data supports synthetics in lawns and they can also cost a whole lot less. One study was done for 15 years… one plot 100% organic and the other plot 100% synthetic. The organic fert plot had 10% more bacteria but not necessarily better turf. Organic fert is about 9x as expensive in my area and it is at least others for the local environment but it also requires 6-10x more deisel to transport, and a lot of it is burned human crap by market share (which means pharmaceuticals and PFAS. There isn’t enough nitrogen in food scraps or coffee grounds to make a dent in the needs of turf, but I could see that working better in a garden. Bagging or mulching I could go either way with, but I want less organic matter in the lawn for a few different reasons so I bag. Grass likes pretty much everything you mentioned except it doesn’t like excess organic matter and organic fertilizers are bad for the lawn and the assumptions about them being good for the environment don’t hold. Grass can offset much imbalance in its root exudates but if PH gets too extreme that isn’t helpful. And don’t do “a soil test”… do a reliable soil test… 50+% of soil tests people get are worthless… they need to be done per spec or no scientific trial can be applied because non spec tests can’t be compared to anything or adjusted per any standard.

Thanks. Got some of my first few haters today. I get their point but I don’t feel like my wording was too far off. I pinned a comment in honor of their perspective which was valid enough. The beginning of the self pH testing video I did recently has my lawn checkered (I usually switch to checks about now, but I do like to hold stripes a while to show off the genetics/color more clearly but checks probably do look better. Welcome. My wife’s YT channel gets priority (she’s killing it) but I am trying to turn the camera on some which is an easier way to communicate with lots of people. This vid was my one and only take, and that’s kinda how I’m planning to do it this year.

I spray weeds in my back lawn… spray is not a great strategy for poa when starting from zero poa on a small lawn and the clover I just deal with that for a week or two. P & K are generally pretty low toxicity, so I don’t mind those in terms of toxicity… I simply have a zero weeds policy in my front, so spot spraying one weed at a time doesn’t make sense and poa has about a 10 day seed cycle, so it needs to be removed asap As far as disagreeing, you won’t find an area of less agreement than the lawncare space. More agreement does come with increased knowledge in general but some people never take the time to isolate what works for them and what doesn’t and there is more than one way to do anything. Humic + Kelp (both, not one of the other) actually can benefit a lawn if it is unirrigated or under intense heat stress but I don’t think that’s the most logical way to address drought especially in more mild environments. Humic+Kelp would be like applying sunscreen but drinking no water… I prefer a drink water and get out of the sun approach. My grass absolutely loves hot weeks, but a hot week for me is pretty mild compared to some just as one example of a difference in strategy. The video is what I do… most points I do think are sound rules of thumb, but not universally applicable practices.

There’s a difference between a foliar feeding and a soil applied sprayed application. Foliar basically means intentionally applying fertilizer to a leaf and I intentionally don’t do that (I’m applying liquids to the soil). A TeeJet TTI 11004 spray tip has huge droplets that help the fertilizer get to the dirt but I apply in light rain or I wait until I’d be watering anyway because proper carrier volume can be burdensome… if it just wasn’t going to ever rain I’d ignore proper carrier volume and just rinse the grass immediately after application but normally I just move my application date based on when it rains (typically I aim to apply on the 1st of non-Winter months). Every area is different, and every grass type is different… what area and do you happen to know you’re grass type? I think of spoon feeding as every 7, 10, or 14 days… I feed about every 30 days, but some would still call that spoon feeding since it’s fertilizing more often than normal. I’m just trying to fertilize often enough that color stays nice and the lawn doesn’t grow like crazy (I don’t want to mow more than I have to) but I also don’t want to get my sprayer out 3-4x per week. When I use to spoon feed it was about .15#N every 10 days in Spring & Fall and about .08# of N every 10 days in Summer… now I do about 3x those rates about 3x as often. Math on a urea application is the exact same as any other fertilizer - including liquids. Fertilizer is always by weight per 1,000’… all analysis is by weight and never by volume. Urea is 46% nitrogen… for very small lawns it can be helpful to know that Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) is 15.5% nitrogen by weight. So, if I were aiming at a .25# N application, my math always starts with that number and divided by the nitrogen concentration. .25 / .46 = .54# of urea needed per 1,000’ If I were applying when the grass looked hungry in Spring or Fall, and I was going to use DEF (15.5%N), my math would look like: .5 (target rate) / .155 (fert concentration) = 3.22# of DEF needed per 1,000’. You’d want enough carrier volume that you could get an even application… you can walk the area with water first and see how much water gets sprayed and then simply add maybe 1/4 gallon to that which would be enough to keep the sprayer spraying until the end for most sprayers. And then either rinse after application or apply in rain. You don’t want concentrated salt on the leaf and I don’t recommend foliar applications for nitrogen because it is more work and more money for less reward… keep nitrogen in the dirt where roots are. Leaves can absorb little so foliar applications don’t make sense in my book. Rather than associating foliar applications with a sprayer, it might be more helpful to begin to associate foliar applications with droplet size. Spray tips appropriate for foliar application would be (these are the ones I use for herbicides in my back lawn): AI11003 (minimal wind) DG11003 (no wind) Both are TeeJet brand, or any time I reference a spray tip it is a TeeJet… they are cheap and high quality and I generally avoid the all plastic versions. And for a soil application I’m intentionally selecting the largest droplet size that is at an angle comfortable for spraying which is a TTI11004 tip… the last number can change to meet the performance of the sprayer and user preference, but the main tip I use is a TTI11004 (fertilizer and grub control) and my second most used tip is rarely used because I only spray a foliar application if I’m doing weed control in the back lawn (rare). Droplet size is the difference between a foliar application and a soil application. I rinse blades as soon as possible but usually I let nature rinse the blades of grass for me or in the Summer I spray right before I water since I need to water about every 3-4 days in the Summer anyway (we have unusually dry Summers where I am with nearly zero rainfall). I’m not intentionally doing 6 hours or even 1 hour on the leaf… the root will absorb the nutrient… there’s no reason to get cute about it. Consider how nitrogen is received in nature. That’s what roots do. Leaves specialize in something else and urea can evaporate some if allowed to. With an average growing season (not too crazy hot during Summer) for KBG I recommend about 2.5# of nitrogen annually, for fine fescue about 1.5#, for perennial rye and for TTTF about 3# of N would make sense or grass can be fed if it looks hungry - more when it’s growing, less when it’s not - but especially with bluegrass excess nitrogen can turn into excess thatch. My exact fertilizer schedule is specific to my grass type and my climate. I have PRG which isn’t appropriate for most climates and my Summers are mild, so grass is happier for more months where I am. The hotter it is, the lower rates should be in Summer… sometimes survival takes priority over thriving. If you’re warm season I’d refer you to your local extension office for rate and timing. If you don’t know your grass type let me know and I can send a few sentences for each cool season type that should help you know exactly what you have. If I knew your area and grass type I could tell you how much N I’d apply and when by eyeballing the temps and you’d need to skip fertilizer if the grass was unwatered and dormant during Summer.

@@LawnCareMinimalist Thank you for the very detailed and prompt response. I didn’t realize that the plant didnt absorb most of it via foliar absorption. I have read and heard from other sources that 3-4hrs dwell time on the leaves and then watering is ideal, but applying water immediately after seems much easier. I am 6a with predominately rye and kbg. I am currently using field king pro battery sprayer (red tip which is high volume high width, seems to be around 1 gallon sprayed per 1000 ft) and have andersons HCU for my urea source (only thing i could get shipped in my area unfortunately). Planning on testing out around 0.15 #N and seeing how it responds and working my way up to .25 once my confidence builds, LOL. I will also try and pick up the recommended Teejet nozzle. And did you mean 3x larger concentration and 3 times LESS often? Thanks again, man. -Nick

3x larger application 3x less often. I have very mild summers and do .35# June & .25# July/Aug/Sept but I’d recommend about .10# less for most areas because if grass is just trying to survive fertilizer isn’t going to help a lot. Early Fall I do one large application of .8#, but in general my Spring and Fall applications average about 1/2# of N monthly. No reason to be cute with anything foliar. If there’s an iron deficiency foliar can help but it’s so temporary that I’d skip that and instead focus on PH (especially around concrete and FeSO4 is quite toxic). No foliar anything for me except weed control in the back lawn. A soil application has evidence of being more efficient for urea and it’s also easier for most lawn sizes and can accommodate higher rates where foliar would almost need to be done weekly because not much quantity of N can get into a plant through the leaves.

Yes. Target rate divided by analysis (always by weight). If I’m doing a half pound application of N: .5 / .46 = 1.09# needed per 1,000 and I apply in rain (or before watering in Summer) to ensure that no fertilizer gets left on the leaf and I also use a soil specific spray tip (TeeJet TTI11004) with huge droplet size to minimize and chance of fertilizer left on the grass blade. All the urea I’ve seen has been 46-0-0. DEF is 15.5% N (32.5% urea, 67.5% water) and sometimes I mention that for a very small lawn if someone is having trouble sourcing urea in their area.

@@LawnCareMinimalist okay, thank you for the explanation. Any recommendations on brand/source for granular urea? You mentioned Scott’s but I have yet to find a Scott’s with just urea or as high as 46% N

For spreading broadcast anything that isn’t my straight urea is foliar. Any urea is prilled (spreadable in a broadcast spreader), but if you aren’t planning on spraying the cheapest option is 46-0-0 (roughly 4x cheaper), but Scott’s 32-0-4 lawn food is prilled a lot finer so it will produce more even color and also could be spread at lower rates if desired. I spray my urea during rain (or right before watering during drought… my front lawn stays watered so I just mean no rain when I say drought). Do you mean trying to get urea for a broadcast spreader? If so, Scott’s Lawn Food will be the best performer for a spreader assuming low or neutral PH for a urea focused fertilizer, but if you have much land I’d just broadcast the 46-0-0. When you buy urea it comes as little balls. Some brands are more pure with finer prilling but availability kind of means you’ll get what you get for the most part for urea. Scott’s Lawn Food is about the highest quality granular for a urea based fertilizer but you might be better served broadcasting 46-0-0 depending on budget. I’m not sure if prill and granular are synonyms or not, but the prilling for straight urea is typically similar to Lesco for granule size (roughly medium) where Scott’s is more of a greens grade prill… if you want the option of Summer appropriate rates that kinda needs to be achieved via liquids or sacrifice some color evenness because it’s hard to spread an even application at a low rate with a granular, where liquids can be applied at any rate perfectly evenly without issue. The differences just evenness of greening.

@@LawnCareMinimalist thank you for the detailed response! Yes, I meant getting urea for a broadcast spreader. I will stick with Scott’s then since it’s easy for me to get and am covering just under 10,000 sqft. I wouldn’t consider that a lot of land. I might get into spray fertilizer here soon for the benefits you mentioned about evenness.

@@LawnCareMinimalist for grub application with a broadcast spreader, would you recommend Scott’s grub ex and lawn food separately or just do their summer guard blend?

Seems like whenever I change blades the thing is full… ideally it would be closer to empty but I don’t think about it until I’m actually tipping the mower over. My cap seems to be nice and sealed, so it seems my mower has done well with my lack of planning there.

Me again…I know you’ve listed everything you normally do here but what do you use for fungicides? Do you ever apply a preventative? Thanks!

Maybe I should when it won’t stop raining… the two diseases I have seen are pink patch and red thread in the same spots. I have some theories, but for now I want to try to figure things out without fungicides. My organic matter is too high and the few spots tend to be in saturated soil… poor soil air may be stunting growth some in a few areas. Sorry, can’t help you there. Disease pressure isn’t too bad in my area because my Summers are very dry.

@@LawnCareMinimalist gotcha. I think the hardest part of fungus for me is identifying it.

@@yard.monsterjoin the FB group “Lawn Care Fanatics” and post a picture. Fungus ID usually isn’t difficult and lots of people will be able to chime in and fairly accurately tell you what fungus you have… there are about 111K members and about 55 “experts” that are just people the knowledgable main moderator felt most consistently give the right advice based on the right questions and an understanding of the primary risk factors. So you’ll get pretty good advice from people on there in general (but also some Milo/brown water/Kelp fanboys), but, I think it would be unlikely that the group couldn’t accurately identify your fungus. You can email a picture to “ask me anything lawn care at gmail” if you want. I’m Trevor Gemmer in the FB group… you can also PM me on FB if you want. I don’t currently use fungicides (spending money on aeration and sand might be a better long term strategy), but I am fairly competent at correctly IDing disease. A few rules of thumb… some diseases are nitrogen loving (exe: pythium, brown patch, leaf spot) and some diseases prefer slow growing grass or low nitrogen (exe: red thread and pink patch and dollar spot) and excess water seems to be a commonality to almost any disease. The N loving diseases tend to be higher temp diseases (days over 85°, nights over 60° 3-5 consecutive nights) where slow growth preferring diseases tend to hit at lower day temps around 60-75° + extra water, so, just looking at the color of the grass and knowing the night temps can be a helpful starting point when discerning between dollar spot and the beginnings of brown patch as an example… with just a little context about 1/2 of the diseases become less likely and 1/2 become more likely.

Yeah, AMS is surprisingly effective + citric at about a pound per K’ every few inches of water and you might want to also apply a little elemental sulfur which will start doing something once PH gets under 7.5 or so. Sulfur bacteria don’t do much to help sulfur effectiveness at PH that high, but the citric can help bridge that gap. And as a possibly relevant tip: generally I advise to stay away from Lilly Miller AMS because it is prilled in wax as best as I can tell and that could be pretty hard on drainage long term. In areas of notably low pH and especially in areas of high PH especially self testing PH makes a lot of sense since pH is a slow play at the extremes. Hope it works out and seems accurate for you. My readings have all been in line with expectation per prior lab tests and they’ve been spot on in the calibration solutions pretty consistently so I have a fairly high confidence that the self test I’m doing are good enough to be able to judge lime accurately. No lime for me front this year. I don’t expect a color response in my back from lime but I’m liming the back anyway. Ideal PH is less likely to have issues and liking is easy and benefits the next homeowner as well. 5.8 is totally fine, but I’d rather see it closer to 6.5 give or take. With PH around 7.8 I’m assuming you’re in an area with not a lot of rainfall or low altitude.

@@LawnCareMinimalist Growth Potential is just hitting 60% in my area (South Texas Border). I've done 1 application of Citric (1lb/K) and 1 application of Elemental Sulfur (5lb/K). We'll go 90 days + without rain + 110F easy. My test showed deficiency in N & P, so I'm applying a 1-1-1 until I can test again and switch off to AMS/Urea. I figure I'll ride the 1-1-1 for the year and test again. My plan is to apply 2lbs N for the year in addition to my Citric + ES apps. All my applications are foliar.

Oh, I was thinking ES was a typo meant as AS (how some people write Ammonium Sulfate) but elemental sulfur makes sense now. AMS is magical for pH. I’d switch to AMS ASAP at your PH. A 1-1-1 is not what you want in heat (very salty). Rey Ito syndrome :) East Texas can have some deficiency and West Texas doesn’t generally need anything… based on your PH and lack of K needed it would be more likely that you’d be in West Texas so I doubt you’d need much P if any. In the interim while you wait for your PH to correct, the fertilizer I’d recommend is a ProPEAT 13-5-8 unless you already have the 1-1-1 because a 13-5-8 ratio is already more P & K than the grass can use so there’s no chance of deficiency while waiting and some things can get better as PH improves since acid is generally what solubilizes nutrients… ProPEAT has a really nice prill size and is AMS based. If your PH we’re lower who knows what your soluble PPM’s would look like, so loading them 1-1-1 before you get your PH on point (especially with that much heat… salt index) likely is going to have cons and possibly no pros other than nitrogen. Are you referring to a quality soil test like a local turf extension office or Waypoint to come up with that “low” conclusion or was it a mailed in water soil test? What would be even better than ProPEAT would be spray grade AMS and a very small amount of MAP to supplement since the test you had didn’t even recommend K. 8-1-4 nominal shoot NPK ratio… no point of loading P Beyond an 8:1 until PH allows more confidence in what’s actually there… adding K is not your friend in heat… “Stress blend” or any bag that says “stress” on it isn’t honest marketing because potassium beyond about 70PPM generally increases stress on the plant rather than reducing it. What approximate city?

@@LawnCareMinimalist I'm in Laredo. 2Hrs south of San Antonio. I sent my soil test to Texas A&M Extension. A m3 test. N ppm was 3 and P ppm was 38. Their recommendation was .8lbs N/K and .6lbs P/K. The reason I chose the 1-1-1 over going the AMS route is due to not returning clippings to the turf often because of disease pressure. I get hit with GLS + Tarr almost yearly. My disease prevention program isn't great. My plan was to go 2lbs N for the year and retest, while investing in better fungicides to prevent GLS + Tarr, so that I might be able to return clippings and switch to AMS. I definitely could switch to AMS as I have spray grade on hand. I'd just need to get a MAP and figure out how many ppms I've added thus far with the 2 applications I've done.

That Texas A&M soil test should be solid… just never know… when I hear soil test it doesn’t mean anything without a qualifier of who did it. Yeah, if you want to do a 1-1-1, ProPEAT does a 10-10-10… all ProPEAT products are AMS based which will move your PH noticably faster than a urea nitrogen source. I would personally stick with my recommendation of the 13-5-8 (at least near times of stress) and you could do the 10-10-10 in low stress months, but I would personally also choose the 13-5-8 then as well because AMS is going to be the logical choice for N for a while, and you won’t see deficiency with that ratio because N will be the limiting factor. If you eventually get your PH closer to 6.5 you could get away with Scott’s starter every 10 applications or so and apply potassium around a 1:3 to nitrogen… easiest thing would be Scott’s “Winterguard” 32-0-10 for the other 9 applications and the cheapest thing might be urea and SOP applying K about 1:3 to N. But first, ProPEAT or spray grade AMS (similar price). You should most likely be AMS only for your nitrogen for the next few years and I wouldn’t want a 1-1-1 salt index when a 13-5-8 is more ideal and allocates more salt to AMS… at either ratio N is the weakest link. Texas is hot… less salts becomes more important. I don’t know what returned clippings has to do with AMS… potassium is going to dance away to some extent but you could build your Phos number, but I wouldn’t want added disease pressure so I’d be bagging and get my P & K from my applications. Any fertilizer with at least an 8-1-4 ratio has very little risk for seeing deficiency (this is the typical dry weight ratio of top growth. Since 13-5-8 is beyond that it would build your numbers without being too excessive for salts. Lots of ways to do it, but that’s what I’d do… easy… faster results… better health during stress (and there’s lots of stress). I don’t remember how big your lawn is but AMS is essentially a fast forward button on your PH if you don’t mind spending the budget on it. Buy one bag of ProPEAT maybe and see what you think… I have no use for it, but it’s very nice stuff and I’d probably be granular in your situation.

Agreed (kind of). I recommend one real soil test per address per lawn but there are people a lot smarter than me (or you) that at times will recommend no soil test at all. The video I released yesterday (accurate PH testing at home) goes into detail about that. Still, phos and potassium are usually there and many people don’t realize: 1) the amount needed before any disadvantage occurs is much lower than previously assumed (many labs recommend per totally outdated info… even reputable labs) 2) most “soil tests” people get are totally worthless and you might as well have a fortune teller tell you you need P or K 3) potassium especially (but also anything the grass doesn’t need) often does actual harm Top growth by weight is about an 8:1:4 ratio. From a real lab, phos PPM should be above 15PPM Mehlich-3 or H3A and over application of P generally isn’t going to hurt the turf much. Potassium on the other hand should be above about 40PPM in areas with mild winters and above 60-70PPM in areas with harsh Winters that go sub 8°F at least a few times a year. You won’t find too many areas with numbers below that per a quality soil test (more common the closer to Florida you are in general and increasingly uncommon the further from Florida in general although my area gets rain with acidic soil so K is pretty “low” here). If people aren’t going to get a quality soil test (the most common test I see by far is fortune teller grade) I personally think they’d be better served starting urea only because it’s a pretty safe gamble. In certain areas a soil test becomes more likely to show something worth seeing. If the turf looks good, what is the point of a soil test when deficiency symptoms often never surface? And does a soil test do actual good when most of the recommendations on the most common tests purchased are totally bogus and even many of the recommendations from reputable labs are more likely to do harm than good. As an example, my soil test showed more than double what was needed for P and about double what is needed for K in my back lawn… in my front lawn P was about 5x what is needed… Midwest Laboratories did my tests (likely the most thurough and reliable lab in the country in terms of results). They don’t sell fertilizer… they are a far more reliable soil test than average… but… even they recommended almost 1/2 a pound of phos and almost 2 pounds of potassium in my back lawn and they even recommended 3/4 of a pound of potassium in my front lawn (WITH POTASSIUM BEYOND 200PPM!). I am confident their potassium recommendation would have done more harm than good in both lawns. Most people probably would have trusted their advice, right?! How many more people get a “soil test” from a company like Yard Mastery and believe they are looking at real numbers? How many people know what numbers to look at and how many people with deficiency numbers show actual deficiency symptoms? Much of the best turf in the world has nutrients below MLSN. I agree that one quality soil test per address would be beneficial IF the consumer knows what the lab doesn’t (unlikely) and IF the consumer uses a quality lab in the first place and IF turf is showing no deficiency symptom I’m confident throwing potassium at the lawn is likely to cause more harm than good… the only lawns that research has shown benefit from adding K were consistently very low on potassium and some research even attempted to deplete the soil by boiling it and still struggled to produce deficiency… harm from potassium is just as common as benefit. Since it’s probably 80%+ that people don’t need it, when in doubt, don’t apply it. I kind of agree with you (which is why I just did a video partially on that topic to clarify), but if I were gambling, it wouldn’t be very risky to take my generality at face value when the advice of many of the best labs doesn’t align with research and most users will trust the lab before they will trust some nobody like myself. Therefore, a soil test (even the highest quality soil test) is not without known risk. Even the best labs are often prescribing per very outdated info… the worst labs are prescribing per profit and those are the same labs with a marketing budget that top Google. The highest market share for soil testing is claimed by the very worst labs in the country. And the advice of the best labs isn’t necessarily sound.

As he said, There may be 2% of people that need any P or K. It is very rare that it's needed and costs a lot of money, not to speak of the environmental problems over application of P will cause. Do a search on the Internet and you will find Many, many scientific papers that show P & K is rarely needed in most lawns...

@@grayfox9911 Lol, another know-it-all. It’s incredibly common to have deficiencies of any macro. Just stop. Bottom line get a soil test to anyone reading this. Dont listen to these geniuses. I’ve been treating soil for almost 50 years and Phosphorus isn’t any more expensive per seasonal treatment than other fertilizers. You can buy DAP from Home Depot for $60 so what the hell are you even talking about? Lmao.

@@LawnCareMinimalist Then amend your wording and do your audience a favor. I received my degree in turf management before you were even born. You “kind of” agree with me about doing a soil test? Your argument is that some can’t be trusted? Wow you’re something. I’m supposed to trust your site more than any extension office? Maybe you’re the one who’s trying to protect your profit. Quack. Stop putting doubts in people’s mind about soil testing facilities to boost your credibility. It’s not rocket science dude. Get a soil test and follow the proper guidelines for doing so and THAT will tell you what you amend your soil with. Period.

@@LawnCareMinimalist Maybe if you knew how to amend your wording you’d be doing your audience a favor. I received my degree in turf management before you were even born. You’re trying to market yourself as a “minimalist” and that’s your schtick and it’s sad because a soil test is cheap and easy to do. You’re being disingenuous by putting doubts in people minds about the integrity of extension office recommendations, soil testing facilities and their Agronomists? You have a lot of nerve dude. Good luck with your RUclips profits.