When you fertilize, how much lbs p/1000 are you applying? Fish emulsion is ok, but you would spent a fortune applying it to a large lawn. I use it as an ingredient in my compost tea.

Synthetic is obviously the quick fix, your call, but I see no reason why you would need to. Soybean meal and Corn Gluten Meal pack a pretty serious punch of Nitrogen, and because they are organic, you can but it down in extremely heavy quantities. Soybean is around 6% and CGM is about 9%. If you did 4 applications of 20lbs p/sq ft this year, you would be getting the lawn plenty of Nitrogen.

That's only half the problem though. Dandelions love lawns low in calcium, and also compact lawns. Have you had a soil test done? You won't be able to have a stand out organic lawn without it. Synthetic 4-steppers can get away with not knowing anything about the health of their soil, because it's mostly dead anyways... but organics rely on healthy soil to build a lawn the flourishes. The great news is that for those that stick with it, each year the cost of maintaining a nice lawn gets lower and lower than your synthetic neighbors.

Last thing... Fall Overseeding is extremely important. I think I overlooked this for too many years. Fescue lawns do not spread like KBG, so they need to be overseeded regularly to maintain a lush, thick, lawn that will out compete the weeds.

If you have done a soil test, post the results. If not, do it right away, otherwise you are just guessing.

For Fish emulsion I use Aggrand and follow the recommended rate, and for Milorganite I also use the recommended rate. Soybean meal - 15lb/1000sq ft. Alfalfa - 20lb.

Here is my test from 2 years ago.

I am going to get another test done this week to see where I'm at now, I'm hoping that the PH is down from all the organic fert I have put down over the last 2 years. I also put down 300lbs/acre of sulphur the first year and again the second year. I will post the results when I get them.

Your organic matter is excellent, but your magnesium is problematically high. Your calcium and pH are very high as well. Did u apply a lot of dolomite lime is the past? Gypsum is needed to flush that magnesium.

When you get your new results, post to the regular lawn forum. There's a user MorpheusPH that will do a full analysis of the results. He prefers Logan labs format, so I would submit there

Since the range of soil pH for lawns is in the 6.0 to 7.0 a pH of 7.4 is not terribly high and is in the range that most cool weather turf grasses will do quite well, but the Calcium to Magnesium ratio is out of whack. Gypsum, Calcium Sulfate, will add more Ca. to the soil which may bring things into balance. With a Very High Nitrogen level you need not add more, but the CEC (Cation Exchange Capacity) is quite high (upper teens to low twenties is where it should be) indicating that the soil (clay?) is hanging onto the nutrients the grass needs to grow.

I'm surprised you could send that soil sample across and international border.

kimmq is kimmsr