Question
Hello, I'm writing from Montreal, Qc and I'm not 100% certain but I think my lawn is Kentucky bluegrass.  Up until last year, I've had a company fertilize my lawn where the last 2 years no pesticides were used as they are now banned.  Even with that service I've had serious problems with chinch bugs.  It was so bad about 5 years ago that on hot day, large areas of my lawn seemed to be a reddish color and when you'd walk on it your shoes were red as if someone sprinkled lots of red pepper on you. I took a sample in a jar and had it analyzed by an agriculture university not to far from here.  They told me it was "first larvae thrips" and I had to control it with a product called Sevin.  It seems gone by now but my lawn has several areas of dead circular patches where some has grass growing in the middle of it.  At first I thought it was chinch bugs again but when I did that "water in the can" test, there were no bugs floating in there.  Now I'm wondering if those dead patches are a fungus.  No chemicals at all were used since last summer as I plan to go organic now.  I just found a place where Milorganite is sold and am thinking of at least starting with that now as my grass is a very light green.  I also found an area this spring where I had grubs and I actually pulled the grass and picked the grubs out.  The robins were feasting as I threw them on the street. I have about 8000 sq ft of lawn to deal with, will the Milorganite help in any way?

Answer
No pesticides, and you're still using Sevin?  Yikes!

After you wipe out all signs of life with something like Sevin, opportunistic organisms move in and take over.  More chemicals are needed.  The cycle continues and they become "addicted" (for lack of a better way of putting it) to the chemicals.  Eventually something goes wrong and there is no cure.  Meanwhile, dogs and cats, children and birds and squirrels are running all over that Grass, bringing the chemicals indoors; people are mowing it, breathing it as they go; genes and DNA everywhere go haywire, weird diseases follow, and no one knows why.

Bad fungi love it when you spray chemicals.  They're everywhere, all the time, just waiting for someone to come along with bug spray and weed killer, someone who will take an eraser to the invisible world in the soil and make it completely inhabitable.  Except for Fungi.

Milorganite is an earth-friendly form of slow release Nitrogen that is good for your Grass.  But I think it needs microbes even more.  Compost Tea will instantly fix that.

Best reason of all:  the Sevin you put down.  You've heard how the EPA is using specialized bacteria to 'eat' toxic waste up?  They're really doing that.  YOu can do it in your Lawn this summer.  In fact, now that you've put down Sevin, you SHOULD.  If only to replace the microbes you wiped out.

Those poor Robins -- who knows what those Grubs are tainted with as the Robins eat breakfast?

You want those Robins so DO NOT USE ANY GRUB KILLER!  It will only make things worse.

It's getting way past my bedtime, but I will resume this tomorrow.  Just didn't want to skip another day with this.  It's critical that you address the soil microbes a.s.a.p.  Hold off on the Milorganite until you have these other problems under control.  I'll pick this up tomorrow.