Question
QUESTION: I live in Connecticut and fertilized my lawn about a month ago using a Scotts brand starter fertilizer on my Kentucky Bluegrass. I have since noticed pale green to yellow spots forming in my front yard. The carpet like appearance my lawn once had is fading away. I realized the fertilizer I used was a balanced fertilizer 10-10-10 and may have contributed to my current problem. How can I fix it? Should I fertilize again with another fertilizer with a higher nitrogen content?

Please help.

ANSWER: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

There is no reason 'starter fertilizer' should turn your lawn yellow.  Something else is wrong.

Chemical fertilizers are a real wakeup slap in the face to Grass.  It's like force-feeding after a starvation diet.  You sound smart and educated enough to know that Chemical Fertilizers go straight to the horse's mouth -- there is no delay, and they disappear as quickly as they went down.  Nitrogen is like that.

Scotts is not modern Science.  It's very 20th Century.  We know a lot more now about Grass than we used to.  You just have not read those Abstracts yet.

10-10-10 is a lovely, low-dose if chemical-based breakfast.  The cool weather and wet conditions we have been seeing lately may have contributed to your problem.  Any thoughts about Fungus?

Click on the link below and see if any of the symptoms seem to match yours:

http://pasture.ecn.purdue.edu/~epados/lawn/extra/OLD/srcold2/Turf_Diseases.htm

Look for example at Rhizoctonia Yellow Patch:  '...a serious disease of Kentucky bluegrass.  It is caused by the fungus Rhizoctonia cerealis and is favored by cool, wet weather.  Since excessively wet conditions favor Rhizoctonia Yellow Patch, it frequently damages new sod laid on heavy soils and it may occur in lawns with heavy thatch and compacted soils.  Early symptoms are 2-3 inch patches of light green to yellow green grass...'

That's just one possibility, but the symptoms somewhere will probably be more recognizable to you.

What else besides the weather conditions could point to Fungus?

Well, the fact that you used ANY Scotts product at all sets you up as the perfect target for a big, fat, juicy Fungus and all their Fungus Friends.

Chemical fertilizer takes a fast growing, healthy blade of grass and pushes the envelope.  The growth is weak and vulnerable.  Since we know that Fungus spores are ALWAYS down there, all over the place, some of them waiting for a big juicy weak blade of grass to stake claim to, your Scotts-spiked Grass is a fungus accident waiting to happen.

Now, I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking: Ah! I'll just run down to the Garden Center and get a Fungicide to clear this up.  Scotts makes those too!

BAAAAAAAD idea, Frank.

Does a Drug Addict go to this Dealer for help to kick his habit?

I had a friend who was a Drug Addict.  We had another friend, a Pharmacist.  Drug Addict went to the Pharmacist for help with his habit.  He kicked the heroin habit, got addicted to pills.  Then after he kicked, he was ready to pick up the heroin again.  Now he had 2 drug problems.

You want 2 drug problems, Frank?

Get a Fungus Killer.  And set up a Trust Fund for your Grass.  It's going to need it this year.  You think Gas is expensive?  Wait 'til you see what your Lawn is going to cost you.

Instead of Fungicide, wait.

Figure out WHAT you have.  If anything.  It is conceivable that you just have a very friendly dog in the neighborhood.  Or perhaps a little too much fertilizer was dropped in certain places in a higher concentration.  Or could this be areas where salt was applied to the street and driveway, to melt ice, and splashed on the grass?

There are lots of possibilities.  If you can find a Fungus, and tell me what it is, I'll tell you how to get rid of it, without using any drugs.

But please, Frank, stay away from Scotts.  You sound like a highly intelligent homeowner.  Statistically, you are the smartest question-asker that AllExperts is going to see.  Those Scotts products are not for you.

Please check those Fungus possibilities, and let me know what you think.  Thanks for writing.






---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for the response.

I have been mowing my lawn consistently every 3 to 4 days and realized that there is no way I applied the 10-10-10 mix I originally mentioned in my previous email. The actual ratio is something like 31-2-3. Based on my new discovery, do you think the lack of iron content could be the reason for the spots on my lawn? It has been about 6 weeks since my 1st appication of fertilizer. Is it safe to use another fertilizer mix on my lawn this weekend with a higher iron content. I tend to agree more with you that the yellow spots may be the effect of improper fertilizer coverage.

However, my lawn lacks the emerald green it once had in addition to the few yellow spots I have. It looks more like a faded green now and I am wondering if another fertilizer with more iron would turn it around?  

Answer
Here it comes, the perfect excuse to run out and buy Scotts Turfbuilder with 2 percent Iron.

Frank, you have to forget everything you've learned that was fed to you by Scotts.  They make terrific commercials.  They spend a fortune on those spots.  But Frank, these are tricks of the trade!  They're not Social Workers, they're not Professors, they're not interested in your Lawn.  They have a job to do: Make money, Sell Scotts.  They're Fertilizer Salespeople! I know you know this, Frank, but when you start talking about the lack of Iron in your fertilizer, it's crystal clear that you WERE NOT LISTENING the other night when I told you to STOP buying their stuff!

Fact:  ALMOST ALL SOIL in this country has PLENTY of Iron in it.

OK, then if it has so much Iron, why would Grass get Chlorosis?  Good question!

I'll tell you why.

Iron deficiency -- Chlorosis -- can be caused by the wrong pH or poor soil.  Sure, soil that is very sandy will not have much Iron in it.  If you have very sandy soil, Frank, it WILL be missing almost all the nutrients that Grass needs to grow in it.  And if that's the case, you have 2 choices.  You can fertilize constantly -- fertilizer washes right through sandy soil and very little gets into roots, except in coincidental passing, so you can't stop fertilizing.  OR you can correct the soil.  That's IF you have soil that is so sandy or poor (which is rare) that it is making your Grass Chlorotic.

Other things can cause Chlorosis.

One is pH.  I'm sure you know what a pH is, and that you usually raise it with a form of Lime to adjust it for your Grass.  Soil pH also determines whether Grass can absorb nutrients in the soil.

In a perfect world, Grass usually grows best in soil with a pH 6 to 7.  When the pH is too high or too low, nutrients can't get into it.  You start to see symptoms of vitamin deficiencies, like Iron.

In fact, Iron deficiency is the first thing that happens to some Grass -- especially Zoysia -- when it doesn't like the pH.  Are you growing Zoysia, Frank?  Although Zoysia can be very sensitive about pH, this isn't a problem that anyone would notice unless the pH was VERY high -- higher than 7.5.  At that pH, Grass is STARVING.  It turns from Green to Yellow Green.  Not in patches or small places, but all over.

Along comes the homeowner with a bag of Ironite.  Is that going to fix this problem?  The soil with the bad pH?

The trouble is, fixing the soil pH is never easy.  Fixing soil pH in established turfgrass is even harder.

That's if the pH is out of whack.

Sometimes soil pH and Iron content in a soil are fine.  In this case, you could be looking at a problem with the roots of your Grass -- caused, believe it or not, by the growth spurt generated by Scotts high-Nitrogen chemical fertilizer.  Roots have to be in sync with the rest of the plant, whether it's Grass, or Trees, or Strawberries.  The Roots are where everything begins.  Max out the leaves while ignoring the rest of the plant, and you are asking for trouble.  If the Roots can't keep up with the Leaves, the Leaves run out of steam.  They turn Yellow.  They develop Chlorosis.  This scenario is not a strong probability with a 10-10-10.  But it is with a 31-2-3.

As you suggest, these are VERY different Fertilizers.  (Mowing on the schedule you described by the way is first rate, Right On.  You can't mow your Grass too much right now, plus Weeds hate it.)

But what I want to know is, Why are you using any of these chemical Fertilizers?

I know, you are probably saying what everyone says.  "It makes no difference to the beet root if the atoms of potassium it absorbs are from an organic fertilizer such as wood ash or an inorganic one such as muriate of potash" (Steve the Gardenguy,
http://www.bostongardens.com/bostongardens/detail.cfm?id=1186%26catid=14%26webid).  Gardenguy points out, correctly, that Organic Fertilizer must be broken down into much simpler, inorganic molecules before the nutrients are in a form that can be used by your Grass.  Chemical Fertilizers have no such delay.  They are ready INSTANTLY.  Because Chemical Fertilizers don't need to be converted.

That's the argument.  Nitrogen molecules are Nitrogen molecules.  Efficient uptake.

And yet, building up the soil, making nutrients STEADILY available, builds the healthiest Grass.  Sure, with your 31-2-3, your Grass greens up in a flash.  But it is less
healthy, and it weakens easily, because the response is to a burst of Nitrogen and overproduction of chlorophyll for a VERY short amount of time.

The Agrowinn website (www.fertilizeronline.com/about.php), one of many organic fertilizer retailers, explains this even better:

'Fertilization with high concentrations of Nitrogen, Potassium, and/or Phosphorus ... stimulates rapid initial plant uptake of trace minerals ... without providing for their replacement...  Excessive Nitrogen reduces the valuable Calcium available to the plant.  Calcium is a 'Cation', together with Magnesium, Potassium, and Sodium.  A reduction in the available Calcium always leads to an imbalance in the 'Cation Exchange'.  If Cations are out of balance, Anions will also not work properly, nor will several important trace elements.'

So you see, too much Nitrogen really, truly is too much of a good thing.

And once the Nitrogen is down, it is used.  Your Grass is still growing in the same imperfect soil.  But now there are other problems.

By the way, the weaker Grass tissue with the big Nitrogen breakfast is now vulnerable to attack by Fungi and Bacteria.  Which can look a lot of those Fungi on the link I gave you with all the Grass Fungus diseases.

Being an American stockholder myself, and being a believer in capitalism and the American system, I have no problem with corporate profits.  Scotts is a growing company and is diversifying into non-chemicals like Organic Soil and Smith & Hawkin.

But this still doesn't fix your Lawn problem.

I recommend you pick up the article on lawn Chlorosis, "Grass Yellowing: Save
Your Greenbacks" (nfrec.ifas.ufl.edu/Newsletters/Archive2005/Newsletter_05_09_05.pdf#search='zoysia%20symptoms%20iron') posted by the North Florida Research and Education Center.

I'd go on, but something tells me you'll be out there with the weedkiller in the morning.  Thanks for writing.  Any comments, I'd like to hear them.