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| Give it candy: Fertilizer sweetens the grass |
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By Bob Traciniski
Illustration by Paul Lange
In conversation we talk about "feeding"
our lawns when we’re about to spread
fertilizer, but the fertilizer itself is not
food. The fertilizer provides important
nutrients that help the lawn manufacture
sugars, a kind of candy that powers growth
and vigor. Here’s how it works.
Fertilizer provides three primary nutrients;
N for nitrogen, P for phosphorus, and
K for potassium. The N is needed for leaf
growth. P promotes healthy root development.
And K helps turf resist disease. The most
effective ratio is 3N-1P-2K because that’s
how lawns use the nutrients.
Fertilizer ingredients. The actual numbers on a bag of lawn fertilizer may be different, but the ratio is roughly the same. In a 35-pound bag labeled 15-5-10, there are 5.25
pounds of N, 1.75 pounds of P, and 3.50 pounds of K. The rest is inert filler that helps
the nutrients spread more evenly.
N comes as water soluble for quick release
and fast green up, and water insoluble
for slow release. Use a fertilizer with a high
percentage of slow release N. Spread it so
that you apply at least 4 pounds of actual
N—not the fertilizer blend, but the N in the
fertilizer—for every 1,000 square feet of
lawn. Be sure to set your spreader for the
correct dispensing rate. A heavy concentration
of fertilizer can “burn” your lawn by
drying it out. It’s a good idea to apply a light
application in one direction, and then another
light application in another direction.
The green color of grass comes from chlorophyll,
a catalyst that helps the grass turn sunlight into sugar that is then stored in the root system. So the roots gather the nutrients from fertilizer, and some trace elements from the soil, and move them into the leaves where chlorophyll helps sunlight convert the elements
into various sugars that are then sent
down to the roots for storage. These sugars
actually are the real lawn food.
So think of the root system as a bag of
candy. In early spring when the ground warms
up and the grass blades come awake, the green leaves grow fast. This is when the grass plants are eating a lot of sugar, and depleting their supply in the root zone. And that’s why it’s important to fertilize in the spring. The
lawn is starving for more ingredients to manufacture more sugar for continued grass growth
and continued good health.
Time your application. When grass plants make sugar in spring, they use a large percentage of it to fuel leafy growth, and store a small percentage in the root system to get through a stressful time. In the autumn that
process flips around: A small portion of the
sugar is used for growth and a larger portion
is stored in the root system to winter over.
That’s why it’s vital to spread fertilizer in
the fall, so the grass can make more candy
and grow like crazy in spring.
So when you see a bag of fertilizer, think
of it as lawn candy—the sugar that helps your
lawn survive and thrive.
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