Hey everyone,
I have been doing some research during the offseason to try to formulate a strategy to improve my yard this season. Using GPT for the structure and information from other sources online I have come up with a plan to attempt a golf course quality yard. Let me know if there is any insight you have or any tips on any of the tasks listed. The main thing I am worried about is the weather in my area (West Texas) being super inconsistent. Please feel free to chime in!
by OverBattle9954
4 Comments
I hope that your fescue and Bermuda are completely different parts of the lawn, like back and front. I’ve never seen them mixed together and look decent. Always looks like absolute shit during dormancy.
And depending on what type/how much clay your soil is, I’ve seen both sand and gypsum turn clay into concrete. So it’s best to test your application in an unsuspecting area before costing your entire yard with it.
A few big corrections:
– ignore the gypsum thing. There’s a lot of myths/falsehoods about gypsum. Gypsum doesn’t “break up clay”, and you don’t *want* to break up clay… Clay benefits from flocculation, clumping together, as that allows pore spaces between the clumps to stay open. Gypsum ONLY does 3 things: 1. help flush out sodium from soil (sodium causes clay particles to disperse or “break up”), you need a soil test to confirm if sodium is high. 2. Add calcium to soil. 3. And sulfate to soil.
– don’t use 16-4-8 or 10-10-10 unless a soil test from Aggie (or a lab recommended by Aggie) says you have low phosphorus and potassium… Otherwise, use something that has an approximate ratio of 5:0:1 (25-0-5 ish for example).
– that’s too much peat moss for topdressing. I wouldn’t recommend spreading more than 10% peat by volume with sand as top dressing. You can use more compost than that.
– Only top dress immediately after core aeration.
– for fall seeding, rent a slit seeder for better distribution and more thorough seed to soil contact.
– don’t use only 2,4-d for weeds on tall fescue. To kill broadleaf weeds, use a product with 2 or more of the following active ingredients: 2,4-d, dicamba, mcpp (mecoprop), mcpa, fluroxypyr, triclopyr, quinclorac. Use quinclorac for crabgrass, and sulfentrazone or halosulfuron for nutsedge.
There’s a few other minor issues, but they’re not bad enough to be worth mentioning.
Fungicides are usually preventative and work when they’re on leaf surfaces… which is shot immediately if a cold front (rain) is coming.
Also, the gypsum thing is way overblown. It’s good for a sulfur source, though. Don’t spread it and any phosphate together.
Too early on the bermuda aeration and first fertilization. Aerate and fertilize when the bermuda is actively growing. Soil temps should be in the 70s or 80s before you aerate.
Also that’s not enough nitrogen for bermuda. 1/4#N/1000 every 4-6 weeks is maybe going to get you to 1# N/1000. Bermuda wants 2-5#N a year.
And don’t topdress bermuda in the fall.