[525mag]

The reason for a spring feeding is to thicken up the turf before the weeds start sprouting. I'm sure you've noticed that weeds always fill up any bare spots in your yard, but more generally the best defense against weeds is a healthy turf.

In southeast PA, fall is a better time to build turf - much better germination and root growth with warm days/cool nights than in Spring when it's cold, cold, and then blazing warm. I do a pre-emergent crabgrass and broadleaf app in mid-late April and don't have that problem - use Dimension or something similar that will have enough N with the herbicide to give you a boost into the summer. You want to get the crabgrass before it sprouts or when the leaves are very small. Use Trimec or Weed-B-Gone for the broadleaf. You want to do your spring fert in late fall/early winter of the prior year so that stuff is in the soil when the growth starts. A good fall app should last you to the time you do your pre-emergent app in late spring. Then follow-up in mid-summer with a lo-N grub app combo like Merit. Check with the golf, athletic turf, or pasture management guys in your area, or find out where lawn services are getting their fert and having soil tests done. In my area commercial turf supply houses do sell by the bag. I also know a guy that does Albrecht soil balancing and I get custom blends from him, as well as granular TurfPro, which is great organic fert and soil builder. Do a soil test and make sure your soil is balanced for the type of grass you want to grow before you go boosting the growth with nitrogen. Check out A. J. Turgeon's Turfgrass Management - great book if you geek out on grass.

 

[refracman]

Let me get this right, people spend thier hard earned money on seed, fertilizer, insecticide, weed killer and water to get this grass stuff to grow like crazy, then spend their limited time just to cut it down all summer ? :bonk:
I can't wrap the ol' brain around it :dunno:

I

 

[redidbull]

I have used Vigoro for years and it works fine for me. I think Scotts does so well is their advertising. Brand recognition it is called. I don't use chemicals on my lawn because of the dogs so just straight fertilizer. Here a tip my Dad gave me years ago.....throw seed on top of the snow inthe winter. As it melts it drives the seed into the soil and it sits there dormant til spring warmth. Jim

 

[APinNY]

Let me get this right, people spend thier hard earned money on seed, fertilizer, insecticide, weed killer and water to get this grass stuff to grow like crazy, then spend their limited time just to cut it down all summer ? :bonk:
I can't wrap the ol' brain around it :dunno:

I

Yeah, we will spend a lot of money just to get some extra seat time.

 

[CADplans]

Scott's claims they use no fillers (inert ingredients) in their fertilizer, and that other brands contain up to 40% fillers. I don't know if that's completely true but as I stated before, it just works better. :dunno:

So if Scotts Turfbuilder is 34-0-10, that means 44% active ingredients to me.

What is the other 56%!!?? Or is the new math they are teaching in school giving a different answer? :dunno:

To answer my own question, I think Lowes sells almost pure nitrogen that is 34-0-0 with only enough lime in it to keep it from being used as an explosive, so maybe 34% nitrogen is as high as you can get?? :dunno:

 

[APinNY]

I have not seen a higher nitrogen content than 33 in fertilyzer. Here is an article on eHow that lists the ingredients in Turf Builder. I don't know how to relate the numbers on the bag to actual content percentage.

 

[c5rulz]

All types of fertilizers don't deliver nitrogen at the same rate, Ideally one wants the breakdown of the fertilizer pellet to deliver nitrogen at a steady rate over a period of weeks. Cheap fertilizers deliver this quickly and it's gone in less than 2 weeks.

Good fertilizers deliver nitrogen for up to 7 weeks by coating the fertilizer. The cheapest way is sulphur coated urea and the better method is poly coated sulphur urea. The higher the concentration the higher the price.

I too think Scott's is to expensive.

I like Signature brand fertilizer and buy chemicals the golf courses use. But then I buy a ton at a time too.:fing32: