Well, this is fun. For the reader, anyway, as I love a challenge...and this is a challenge.

pH: 4.9/5.6. We'll be talking about this under calcium, magnesium, and potassium. pH is a symptom, not a disease--and this indicates roughly the same thing a 100.5° fever indicates in an adult human.

Exchange Capacity 4-5 ish. This is a sandy soil with very little in the way of silt or clay. Which doesn't mean it can't compact and act like clay, it sure can. Any soil can. Between this and your OM reading, I'd suggest plenty of organic material and feeding your new Bermuda organically during the season. "Perfect" EC is 10 to 20, but being at 5 or so just means your soil doesn't hold a lot of resources and can change character very quickly. Yearly testing is recommended.

Organic Matter 3-ish: Pretty low. I put Good at 6%. As mentioned above, feed organically, mulch mow every single leaf you get, always mulch mow unless you have an issue, and so on. With an EC that low, I'd like to see your OM go as high as possible to store resources--realizing that organic matter tends to be lower in sandier soils due to the oxygen penetration being pretty good.

Sulfur 25-ish: Well within optimal and normal range. This gives us plenty of room to play.

Phosphorus 110-ish: Somewhat low, although nothing extreme. As we whack your pH into shape, P will become much more available than it currently is. Right now, P is locked up pretty tight and plants might show some symptoms of low P, but that's transient. Still, we do want to raise this to around 200.

Calcium 34%/56%: Extremely low in the sodded front, rather low in the no-sod section. Locate a good calcitic lime (Encap or Jonathan Green Mir-A-Cal) and apply as in the Recommendations below.

Magnesium 5%/6.3%: Low in both cases. At your local drug store, purchase a 5 pound bag of Epsom salts (or more than one depending on your lawn size). Apply as per the Recommendations below.

Potassium 3.4%: While not low, you could use some to boost this up a little higher and even out the pH a little more. You can purchase potassium sulfate (0-0-50) at many specialty gardening stores or landscapers. Both can usually order it for you.

Sodium 3.3%/3.4%: High, but the calcium and magnesium should help kick it out.

Minor Elements: Some fiddling would help here, but I'm disinclined to do that when the pH is that far off; availability fluctuates markedly at non-optimal pH levels. Let's hold these for next year.

Recommendations (Note: When I say "pounds per thousand" or "pounds per K" or "# per K" I mean "pounds of product per thousand square feet.")

General: Feed organically, mulch mow the lawn, mulch in all fall leaves. Starting a home compost bin or pile would be great, but not possible in many cases.

Now (before October 15): Apply calcitic lime at 6 pounds per thousand square feet.

November 1: Apply starter fertilizer (high second number) at bag rate.

November 15: Apply 0.5 pound per thousand Epsom salt.

December 1: Apply 0.5 pounds per thousand potassium sulfate and 0.5 pounds per thousand Epsom salt.

April 1: Apply 6 pounds per thousand calcitic lime on the sodded section only.

April 15: Apply 0.5 pounds per thousand Epsom salt and 0.5 pounds per thousand potassium sulfate.

May 1: Apply starter fertilizer (high second number) at bag rate.

May 15: Apply 0.5 pounds per thousand Epsom salt.

June 1: Apply starter fertilizer at bag rate.

morpheuspa- Thanks for the quick response. I just
now got a chance to read it. I've been watching the grandkids . Sorry for the challenge, is my lawn that bad ? I didn't know if I should test the 2 areas together or separate. I'm sure I will have more questions later.

I applied fertilizer 26-0-2 at bag rate on Oct. 2 and dimension pre-emergent on Sept. 27. would that change anything?

We're golden on the fertilizer/Dimension, neither will matter. For now, we'll take over with starter fertilizer, but if you want to winterize with a high-nitrogen fert, that's fine as long as shut down is after November 21st. In your locale, SC, it should be far later than that (hence my extending some apps into December--if you soil freeze at all, it won't be until after Christmas).

Let's just say the lawn is "not that great." This is not a collapsed soil where all resources are tapped and deficient, you have moderate deficiencies across the board. But performance is going to seriously suffer under those conditions as there's no major nutrient (except maybe nitrogen) that it has in the correct amounts.

Even if it had come back "nuke this from orbit, it's the only way to be sure," it's still fixable. It just takes a little longer.

In your case, with a sandy soil, the challenge will be to keep it in the proper ranges once we get it there. Sandy soils leach resources like nobody's business, and store so little in the first place that plants can tap it out easily. That's why you don't usually see lush growth on most beaches (in addition to the incredibly high sodium levels on most beach sands).

And don't forget about improving your organic matter by using organic fertilizer. The worst part about sandy soil is the inability to hold nutrients. It is pretty good at holding organic matter once you get the life going. Bacteria give off what is affectionately known as slime (think slippery fish). That slime will help hold nutrients and moisture until the slime itself decomposes. Fortunately there are more bacteria right behind creating more slime, but they have to be healthy to do that. To get them healthy, you feed them organic fertilizers.

I will start mulch mowing from now on. I was bagging the clippings just because it looks better. What does the Epsom Salt do?- Just wondering. I used alfalfa pellets this spring and then I was seeing alfalfa sprouts. Is that suppose to happen? I can't wait to get started on this plan! Thanks for all your help.

Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) is a magnesium source. There are others, like dolomitic limestone, but Epsom salt is available much, much faster.

You'll occasionally see an online article stating that such and such a plant LOVES Epsom salt. Ignore those. It's true to some extent if the soil is magnesium short, but not if there's sufficient in the soil. My magnesium-loving plants do just fine (quite beautifully, in fact) in my standard soil, which has the perfect amount of magnesium.

I've never seen alfalfa pellets sprout! However, if there was seed in there, sure. I do occasionally get a small corn plant from cracked corn, however, and those are amusing.

Which starter fertilizer do you think would be best:
Lowes has Sta-Green Starter 18-24-6 slow release with added iron and Scotts starter fertilizer 24-25-4 fast release with no iron. I got the Pennington Lime and will apply that today.

Which one is cheaper? They're pretty much identical, although I'd have a tendency to choose the one without slow release nitrogen (but it doesn't really matter).

As far as P, both are pretty much identical so it makes no difference...and hence, I'd choose the cheaper one.

ok, thanks

• Morpheuspa, So far I have applied everything you recommended and my lawn is looking good. Do I need to apply anything after June? Thanks for all the help.

It's time for a new soil test in July or August! That'll tell us what, if anything, remains to be done.

Should I do 2 separate tests like last time or just one?

Just this one extra time, I'd do both tests. The front and front-no-sod differed so much on calcium that it's likely we'll need to glide in on the no-sod yard.