Thanks, that oven pan in the upper right corner is some soil I dug up to do a jar test and was going to send some to Texas A&M for testing. Im just trying to come up with ideas in the meantime. Im just scratching my head right now. I realize its getting late in the year to make much progress. . Im hoping to get the soil nice and ready for next season.

Also it needs to be leveled pretty bad. Builders did a terrible job, but I can live with it for now. I just want to get the soil in shape so I can level and reseed it next season.

What is keeping you from using the shampoo "trick?" If you paid $75 per gallon for a commercial turf surfactant, would you still refer to it as a trick? The commercial surfactants are almost the same chemicals as in shampoo - depending on what your definition of 'almost' is. You certainly could wash your hair with the commercial lawn surfactants. And you certainly can soften your soil with shampoo. Difference is with shampoo it will only cost you about $0.15 per 1,000 square feet to try it out. What could you possibly be waiting for?

I'm going to try to convince you not to use TAMU for your soil test. Unless you graduated from there and feel an intense need to believe everything they do is correct, then I would go to Logan Labs in Ohio. TAMU has had a decades long scandal going on in their soil testing. Back in about 2007 they finally admitted they were doing their test wrong and had been over prescribing fertilizer literally for decades. Logan Labs, on the other hand, is a professional company that does nothing but soil tests. For $20 you can get a better test with much more information than you can get for $100 worth of testing at TAMU. Logan Labs does a full workup on every test. By being in huge production of the full test, they are up to date on the test procedures and get bulk rates on the chemicals. If you wanted the LL quality test from TAMU, they would have to refresh themselves on the test procedures and special order the chemicals.

But I don't think you need a soil test unless and until the shampoo does not work for you. Please believe me that there are puh-LENTY of lawn gurus who swear by the results of the shampoo process. These people have unbelievable lawns all across the country. One of them had a tree fall over in his yard and a limb sunk 27 inches into the grass (Andy? Are your ears burning?). You really must try it. Apply the shampoo at a rate of at least 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Then follow up with a full inch of irrigation. If you get runoff before the inch accumulates, stop immediately and allow the moisture to soak in for 15 to 30 minutes. Then continue to get the rest of the inch. Water normally the following week and repeat the soap on the second week. After that your soil should be soft when moist and firm up as the days go on before you water again. If you continue to water weekly the shampoo should last for a long time. I last applied it in 2011 and my soil still softens up when it rains or when I water.

If you want to get some life into your soil, fertilize at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet with alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). You can get them at your local feed store or pet store in 50-pound bags for about $12 to $14. You can use that as often as you like. I just had someone email me today to thank me for getting him to use alfalfa pellets. He described the results as incredible. He applied it every week for 5 weeks. I think once would be plenty to start, but he was pretty desperate. Even if you get onto a good fertilizer schedule using chemicals, I would strongly urge you to use alfalfa at least once per year. Find the Bermuda Bible online and memorize it.

I noticed today that my bottle of Dial liquid hand soap has a higher level of surfactants in it than the baby shampoo. The surfactant was #2 on the list of ingredients with Dial. Any reason I can't use the hand soap?

A lot of handsoaps nowadays are antibacterial which can kill some of the good bacteria that is needed in the soil. I've been buying baby shampoo at my local Dollar General store for cheap and as crazy as it sounds, it works.

Forget the baby shampoo. Do this right.

Core aerate. Since you're not seeding now, aerate in as many directions as you can. Spread compost. It will wash into the holes left when you aerate. When you go to regrade the area in the spring, use compost only. Baby shampoo contains surfactants, but it is not a longterm solution to any problem and it doesn't break up compacted soil. No liquid product of any kind will be more than a Band Aid, and that includes those magic-bullet products like Earth Rite, that claim to turn lousy soil into great soil. It doesn't work that way. The addition of organic material is the ONLY thing to do.

Sorry, but I don't buy the anecdotes here. I buy the FREE university research from land-grant schools whose job it is to give us these kinds of answers.

Consult your nearest Extension office. TAMU has loads of them, and believe me, I volunteer at K-State Extension -- we don't charge $100 for a soil test, even the most extensive one. Most of our tests are FREE, and the fancy ones cost $20.

Shampoo is more than a band-aid. I agree, the ultimate goal is to get organic material into the soil. You can core aerate but it's not necessary. As a surfacant the deep watering will draw the roots deeper for water and the added moisture will revive many beneficial organisms already in the soil. As the roots extend into the ground THEY will become organic material and also loosen up the soil. I started the regimen recommended by dchall back in May. I had very hard clay and bermuda lawn that struggled to spread. My lawn has completely filled in my yard. I only watered it THREE times in July, and I have earthworm castings everywhere. I mulch mow and have added 20 lbs of alfalfa also. This will all end up in the soil. I only needed two treatments with the shampoo. I was only able to stick a 18" piece of rebar two inches into the ground at first. Now I can stick it into dry grass about 6-8 inches anywhere in the yard. After I water I can easily sink it in 12-14 inches. Do what you want, but I took dchall's advice and would highly recommend trying it.

Wow, MulchMama - a few assumptions there maybe? While you're certainly entitled to do what you want on your property, you're not making a great case for your background in soils and your studies.

First of all, professional labs do NOT charge $100. The cited Logan Labs charges $20, and does not "dumb-down" the test results into Low/Medium/High categories. They provide the actual numbers, including TEC/CEC, OM, Base Saturations, desired Ca/Mg/K/Na for that TEC and calculation adjustments for varying depth. Much of that is NOT supplied by TAMU, or only at (significantly) added cost. So, please check your facts before making incorrect statements.

Many land-grant university soil tests have been outsourced to lowest-cost providers. They don't answer phone calls, don't return emails, etc. Professional labs answer the phone in business hours, are willing to discuss results and will make adjustments for "specialty soils" that may require different tests like Ammonium Acetate.

increasing soil flocculation by surfactants is not witch-doctor stuff. Yes, it is temporary - but so is core aeration. A regular program of surfactants can definitely improve the workability of the soil.

There is no reason to demonize the suggestions of some of the above people because you disagree with them -- especially if your facts are wrong.

I agree that baby shampoo sounds dumb. In fact before I tried it I had spent months developing a method for softening hard soil (not compacted - just hard). My method worked great and had a small following among the lawn forums; however, the process took weeks of continual slow soaking. Then came the folks who developed the surfactant product. Well I know what a surfactant is and I recognized the ingredients in the surfactant as similar to those in shampoo. Still I was very skeptical. At the same time I knew it wouldn't cost me anything to try it because I already had shampoo in the house. I sprayed my first dose in 2011 and after 2 weeks there was no change. I sprayed the second dose and suddenly all was right with my soil. Here it is 2013, I have only spent a dollar, and my soil still softens every time I irrigate.

MulchMama suggested you have compacted soil. I would argue that 95% of people who believe their soil is compacted simply have hard soil. In order to compact soil there must be a mechanical process on saturated soil. Usually that only happens around livestock watering troughs. More rarely it happens when cars drive over a rain soaked soil. But it almost never happens in a landscape. Hard soil is caused by the depletion of the beneficial fungus population in the soil. Perhaps MulchMama can find some research to verify the method by which slow watering (or spraying with shampoo) works in his subscription service. My hypothesis is that the relatively prolonged and even moisture levels deeper in the soil allow the fungus to return by providing just the right moisture and temperature environment for it to thrive. Again, it only costs pennies to try it out. Renting a 500-pound core aerator will cost you $75 and may hurt you moving it around. But if you decide to use an aerator, run it in at least 8 directions to get as many holes as you can. Then if you want to try to level your yard, sweep the cores from the high spots in the yard to the low spots. Follow up the aerating with a thorough soaking as if you were trying to fill up all the core holes you just drilled. The whole purpose of aerating is to get air and moisture deeper into the soil. You can do it but if you forget to water, then all you're doing is drying out the soil faster. And again, that runs counter to the plan of softening the soil.

I always specify baby shampoo because it has no additives in it. Other shampoos have conditioners, but any clear shampoo will work. A few years ago we had reasons to spray soap in the yard. The favorite soap back then was Dawn dish detergent. Since then they have added antibacterial properties and that runs counter to the reason you are spraying in the first place.

In Texas they charge for soil testing. The most basic test is $10. I believe test 11 ($64) on this page is the one that compares best with Logan Labs $20 test.

The county extension service in Texas has become a sort of laughing stock among nursery people and the home owners who are paying attention. The official extension service is forbidden to comment on methods and materials which are not tested and approved by the state land grant school. TAMU's lack of any information on organic gardening completely crippled the organic industry in Texas. It got so bad about 10 years ago that a group of frustrated extension service people got together and started an alternative training program based on things that work regardless of whether TAMU has the research to back it up. With the lack of support from TAMU, the gardeners in San Antonio have become the defacto mentors for the rest of Texas regarding organics. Dallas quickly got a large cadre of organic practitioners. Houston has caught on and now Austin finally is off and running.

MulchMama I support your approach in using only peer reviewed journal articles for your lawn care. I just think, after 10 years of reading four active lawn care forums, that there are approaches that work that the universities will never seriously investigate. Note that I did not solicit people to comment on using shampoo, but a couple did chime in. I am very comfortable in my suggestions on this forum, because they are based on reading the same things over and over. There are several maxims I have collected over the years. Among them are
Don't use weed n feed
Water deeply and infrequently
Don't rely on yard services like Tru-Green for fertilizer and weed control
Always mulch mow
Fertilize 3x per year (once in late spring, once in early fall and once in late fall)
Sow grass seed in the fall
Alfalfa pellets make a great organic fertilizer
Mow most grasses mid to high on the mower
I'm not offering any support for these ideas. You have to go back 10 years on several forums to get the full background on these concepts. I'm just boiling it down.

Those topics came up time and time again. When I first came to these forums I was not doing any of those things. My lawn struggled and every weekend was frustrating as I wandered through the weeds wondering why it looked practically dead. I had to forget most of what I thought I knew about lawn care to get my lawn fixed. Now it is practically on autopilot. I have not aerated in 15 years, have not used chemical fertilizers in 12 years, have not used dry herbicides or weed n feeds for 13 years, and have not used insecticides for 12 years. Also I only water once a week in the summer, although we are staring at stage 3 drought conditions which will limit us to once every other week for watering. Hopefully they will allow soakers.

rockinar, I saw that you mentioned overseeding. If you do have a hybrid bermuda grass and if you meant overseeding with bermuda seed, PLEASE DO NOT OVERSEED. Seeded varieties are different than hybrid bermudas.

Shampoo and surficants do appear to be beneficial in some circumustances. A surficant will improve moisture penatration into crusted/hard soil "localized dry spots". which will promote root growth. As cwrebel points out, root action is the superior aerator and improved rooting will improve OM in soils as up to 50% of roots slough-off during each season.
Whatever promotes root growth is going to result in improved soil tilth.
I do think shampooing gets over-prescribed as a cure-all. Consequently, unfortunately, it is in danger of developing a reputation as a snake-oil. For instance, If applied to a sandy soil, it can be the last nail in the coffin for the turf. Also, any benefit in curing what is commonly refered to here as "mechanical compaction" is glacial at best.
Plug aeration also has its benefits. It can reduce compaction. It will help counteract the adverse affects of thatch. It is a method by which some amendments (OM-peat moss in particular, gypsum, water) can be added to soil into the root zone, improving the soil and promoting rooting and turf health. However, these changes to the soil only effect small, localized areas surrounding the plug holes; and, as most available aerators only produce 5-9 holes per square foot (minimum of 20+ holes per square foot is recommended,) it is going to take numerous passes to get the benefits desired of plug aeration.
Although I think there are many benefits to be derived through plug aeration, if the problem is water penitration, why not take the path of least resistance and try shamppoing? It's less expensive, less work, and convenient. It very well may be the only action needed to resolve the problem.

One other point. Mulchmama, you advise the use of compost for regrading. I hope you meant to say topdressing as compost wont do squat for for the grade.

Double post.

This post was edited by grass1950 on Wed, Aug 7, 13 at 12:07

Yes, if you have true compaction, shampoo will not work any better than water. If you had that I'd go as far as to suggest rototilling (I know...I said it. Mark this day on your calendar). The problem with true compaction is all the air has been driven out of the soil by mechanical action when the soil was saturated. When it dries all the particles are locked together. You have to get them separated and then let a new soil structure form. Tillers are good for that. Of course in the future you would have to come back and relevel the lawn.

Sandy soil does not need shampoo. Usually it does not need it to begin with because people with sandy soil never complain about it being "compacted."

Compost has its place, but not for grading. Being organic compost will soon completely "evaporate" as it decomposes. If you need to level or regrade, use sand or topsoil.

And please do not reseed or overseed bermuda into a hybrid bermuda lawn. If you are sure you have a common bermuda lawn, then okay, but hybrid bermuda is a different plant from the seeded varieties.

Sandy soil should not be confused with sand, nor should compacted soil be confused with hydrophobic soil. Although both may exhibit similar traits in moisture penitration, the "causation" of the condition is different and may necessitate a differnt remedy for effective remediation.

This is the single best thread I've read so far!

Excellent points by grass...and uscjusto (!). Lots of info in just 3 days.

Sandy silt can resemble compacted soil in many ways. Hydrophobic soil is often caused by certain organic microbes under special circumstances. I don't think this is the case here, but to be more certain, I'd like to know more about rockinar's watering. How often and for how long?

I believe dchall is correct. Sounds to me like you have hard pan caused by compaction. It's very common on newer yards due to how the developers strip the lots before building.

Dig in the yard until you find some soil that isn't compacted. You may find it's about a foot below the surface. Tiling is the best option.

You've stuck your teat in the wringer now David. :)

Shampoo Application Method: I have a Chameleon® Adaptable Hose End Sprayer. What setting should I put it on to achieve the 3 ounces / 1000 sq ft?

I'd suggest the Shower or Flat Fan setting (I use shower on my other-brand hose end). Setting will be somewhere between 1 tsp and 1 oz depending on how fast you move.

Fortunately, overapplication comes with few problems, so I'd test it and adjust as you go.

Few problems? Like what? I think he's encouraging you to go for it.
Setting on the sprayer is irrelevant. If you have a 2,000 square foot lawn, put 6 ounces of shampoo into the sprayer, fill it with water, and apply at any setting, as evenly as possible, until all the spray is gone. You will have applied 6 ounces over 2,000 square feet.