Logan Labs soil test need help Morpheus!

10 years ago

last modified: 10 years ago

Below is the link to my Logan Labs soil analysis.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxzA2leoUJKKVEZRMGFiSE1qLTA

I live in Cedar Park, Texas (NW Austin). Two plus years ago our St. Augustine yard was thick and lush. Since then it has seemed to be thinning. For the past several years, I would apply Scotts Bonus S in the Fall and Spring. But, I have put off applying fertilizer last Fall and this Spring so I could do the analysis. When looking at the blades of grass, they all look very healthy and green, but overall, the yard is thin.

We do have 21 live oaks on our small yard (.25 acre), and I’ve been pruning to allow more sunlight through. Since the yard has always been healthy – up until the last couple of years, I’m inclined to believe it is an imbalance in the soil over the amount of sunlight. Hopefully the soil analysis will shed some light on this.

Also, I would like to move to organic fertilizers and would appreciate any suggestions on suppliers and products in my area.

Thanks in advance!

Thomas

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Comments (3)

User
10 years ago
Your soil presents some challenges, but it's pretty normal for your area. You can grow a lawn in it, no problems, but...

ME 57.46: This number is vastly overinflated by the calcium in the soil. For the purpose of recommendations and the read, I'm turning this down to 15. It's fairly typical for this to happen in Texas.

pH 7.2: A tad high, but nothing grass will object to. It cannot easily be changed, so get used to it. :-)

OM 5.7%: Good, edging up on Excellent. Certainly mulch mow and mow your fall leaves, but you don't need to make any special effort here.

Sulfur 14: Normal.

Phosphorus 205: While I would technically call your target 220, 205 is so close that it's not worth doing anything about the small difference. If you fed the lawn with starter fertilizer once, I wouldn't blink, but it's also strictly optional and entirely up to you if you want to bother.

Calcium 88.3%: Sky high, but impossible to change, and grass certainly won't have a problem with this.

Magnesium 6.5%: It looks low on paper, but it's really fairly high. No magnesium required or desired, and I'd actually avoid magnesium sources.

Potassium 0.8%: This looks very low, but is actually close to optimal (perhaps a tad low, but not worth modifying at this time).

Minor Elements: Boron is perfect (a tad high, but it's not a problem). Other minor elements are very high, but again, this won't cause problems. Iron is discussed below.

Iron 63: Low, and your pH is blocking absorption. Normally I'd recommend using Milorganite as you can to slowly raise this--in this particular case, I actually recommend feeding your lawn solely with Milorganite for a year or two to lift the iron levels.
Tom Varshal
Original Author
10 years ago
Thank you for all of the great feedback, Morpheus. I will apply the starter fertilizer and the Milorganite as you suggested. Do you recommend the Milo be applied at certain times of the year?
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User
10 years ago
St. Aug doesn't require constant feeding like Bermuda does...but it also won't object to Milorganite any time you want to add it.

I'd probably recommend two or three times per year. Call it May, September, and October to make sure the lawn benefits from it.