Fertilizers
for the upcoming year
by Craig Paskvan, Paskvan
Consulting
As your season winds down, this is an excellent time of the year to look over fertilizers for the upcoming year. If you have an irrigation water problem due to high bicarbonates, now would be a good time to begin looking for products that have calcium in them. Anytime you have bicarbonates over 120 p.p.m., the bicarbonates will tie up available calcium in your soil. To ensure that your turf has enough available calcium, you need to be adding some type of calcium during the growing season. There are a number of liquid calcium products that will do the job.
I am probably more partial to gypsum for a couple of reasons. Because gypsum is approximately 22% calcium and 18% sulfur, it will give you a net of about 4% calcium that will be available for your plants. Secondly, the sulfur in gypsum will work away at the bicarbonates in your pore spaces. The sulfur from the gypsum will break the bonds that the bicarbonates form, and then you can leach them through your soil profile. Bicarbonates will also tie up your potassium as well. Again, because of the anion/cation relationship here, you need to apply enough potassium during the year to offset the bicarbonates you are applying every time you water. Remember, high bicarbonates will tie up calcium and potash, so those two items need to become a part of your maintenance fertilizer program Incidentally, the USGA Green Section Record for September/October of this year has an excellent article entitled “Understanding Water Quality and Guidelines to Management.” If you don’t receive the Green Section, and would like a copy of this article, call me and I’ll see what I can do.
Our calendar of events will take us to the Minnesota Turf and Grounds Foundation Seminar in Minneapolis in December. Our next stop will be at the National Superintendents Conference in Dallas in February. If you happen to be at either of those two conferences, please feel to stop by our booth. Our booth number this year in Dallas is 1941.
Craig
Paskvan
Paskvan Consulting
http://www.paskvanconsulting.com
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