Grass does not grow well under pine trees for a few reasons. One would be shade. The next would be the pine needles make the soil acidic over the years. It does not happen over night. I think there is a small chance these will move a soil ph. I see it more as a compost bin. Its a brown and mulching grass blades would be a green. Most compost is neutral in ph

[ Post made via Android ]

tbk031 wrote:Hello everyone.

Just a quick question as it appears these petllets are made of pine. I remember on an older thread that it was felt pine is somewhat acidic. It was discussed that grass does not grow well under pine trees, but perhaps this is because of the pine needles.

Any thoughts?

Old wives-tale. Pine needles have a pH of 6, the wood is about the same, or nothing to worry about when adding a few hundred or a few thousand pounds per K square foot.

Breakdown of both is acidic, but nothing severe, and that's true of any organic. The final pH is very close to seven, just like any organic.

Pines don't grow much under them because of the water draw from the tree, the shadowing from the typically dense branches, and the allelopathic effect of pine (it can kill an invader).

Wouldn't this be easier in the fall or spring when the grass is shorter? The thoughts of raking a 100 pounds of sawdust pellets just doesn't sound as fun as spraying kelp.

How much of a OM rise are you expecting?

you would be lucky to get one tenth of one percent{0.10} out of 100 lb per thousand sq ft dropped,real lucky.

Or less than that.

100 / 50,000 (the weight of 1 K ft soil to six inches, roughly) = 0.002 = 0.2%

Even if forty percent of the mass turns to humic material, that's 0.08% OM rise.

Why I rather just topdress with 1 yard of compost per 1K, 1100 lb X 40% should give you a just under 1% rise in OM

Don't any of you folks play connect-the-dots? You're all so busy doing simple math that you've stopped thinking. There are three items that I've posted in the last four weeks that when used together give you a pretty big edge on a major problem. But nobody is putting any of the pieces together.

Connect the dots!

PS: there is a curve-ball in the items I've posted, so that it's not a gimme.

Is one of them Variety of organic material ????

Sawdust, Milk, Milorganite

andy10917 wrote:Don't any of you folks play connect-the-dots? You're all so busy doing simple math that you've stopped thinking. There are three items that I've posted in the last four weeks that when used together give you a pretty big edge on a major problem. But nobody is putting any of the pieces together.

Connect the dots!

PS: there is a curve-ball in the items I've posted, so that it's not a gimme.

I think I'm kinda doing that on my own, plus one thing, minus another, and so on. But I'm a cheap-arsed SOB.

Sawdust for mulch (and a minor humectant), add an anti-evaporative, and an anti-transpirant (not to be confused with an antiperspirant, which I very much needed today!)

The plants won't lose quite so much water. The soil won't lose quite so much water, and what the soil does lose tends to get caught in the sawdust and bounced back down. Plus the sawdust, being light, tends to reflect sunlight instead of absorbing it as an organic soil will, dropping the temperature and, hence, the evaporation levels.

My test is glycerine (anti-evaporative plus humectant to pull water from the air), humic acid in heavier amounts (anti-evaporative), kelp starting in spring (root growth and density, plus hot-weather armoring via cellular changes), and sawdust (mulch and humectant).

So far, day 4 with no rain and in the 90's, and my trouble spots aren't even blinking. By now I should see some minor, spotty issues that I'd be studiously ignoring because I won't water this soon.

We found a way to get the pellets in and it's easy.

Mow them before they expand. It drops them right into the lawn. We applied 200 pounds to Mom's trouble spots this morning, and mowed over. The pellets shattered and are gone, for the most part, with only a few bits and pieces left up top.

I mowed mine after they got wet. It still worked but not as good. I have been mowing shorter and shorter for a Reno. Its all gone now after a few days and some heavy rains.

[ Post made via Android ]

andy10917 wrote:Don't any of you folks play connect-the-dots? You're all so busy doing simple math that you've stopped thinking. There are three items that I've posted in the last four weeks that when used together give you a pretty big edge on a major problem. But nobody is putting any of the pieces together.

Connect the dots!

PS: there is a curve-ball in the items I've posted, so that it's not a gimme.

I think I may have missed some of the posts... damn! I saw Soil Moist and the sawdust pellets. What was the third item?? Curiosity is killing me...

I'm really pumped, I bought a bag of the canadian pellets here at Agway and ran them through my chipper after changing the screen to .75 inches instead of the original 1.5 inches. It came out beautifully, nice spreadable stuff, almost like SBM (although a tad too light).

One 30 lb bag filled two 5 gallon buckets. I figure I could do about 90 lbs a week or so. This will break down a lot faster than the pellets.

Here are the original pellets:




Here they are afterwards:



Here is the setup (I had to put the trays underneath so the product wouldn't fly everywhere:

Im gonna get me some of those horse bed pellets at my local tractor supply store tomorrow and see what the fuss is all about.How does starting with 2 40lb bags for 1,500 sq feet sound?

HanLawn wrote:Im gonna get me some of those horse bed pellets at my local tractor supply store tomorrow and see what the fuss is all about.How does starting with 2 40lb bags for 1,500 sq feet sound?

Start with one for that size lawn.

Nice! I wish I had a chipper/shredder. Maybe Santa will deliver one to all the Good Little Lawn Boys and Girls.

The stuff works. Warranted, I was going at 600 per K, but all my dry areas except one look great, and that one is on the southern face by a rock wall, tilts into the sun and wind, and the soil rots right there anyway.

For the most part, I'm noticing I now have All New Bad Areas, which were the secondary ones, but all are smaller and not so bad. I may go back for more pellets for those.

Except I know where that will lead. The tertiary ones will show another day down the line...

Anyone have an opinion on this variation of the pine pellets, they are straw based http://www.southernstates.com/catalog/p ... -30lb.aspx

Go for it if they're cheap (with one minor caveat). Straw's high carbon, will break down about the same as wood does (but probably a bit faster if I'm guessing right and lignin levels are much lower), and will mulch just fine.

The only minor issue I see is the typical problem with straw--weeds! I don't know what mechanism, if any, they use to remove the weed seeds from the straw and we've all seen issues with that during renovations.

This whole topic is out-of-control, and has turned into a fad.

The topic got going this Spring when I casually mentioned that I had put down some sawdust pellets as part of four other things that I had applied to the lawn. "JG" questioned me about it and I admitted that I use them when I run out of regular sawdust from wood-planing projects.

They help a lot with soil tilth, but I'm just waiting for the first posting that says that "I put them down a month ago and nothing happened".

And I roll my eyes every time that someone wants to calculate the exact application rate that is scientifically determined.

Stop!

There is no university research about this stuff. This is grass-roots (I don't know if that's a pun or not), old-school basics. Put down what you want, when you want and put away the shop-vacs, blowers and pseudoscience.

The only piece of science that exists on this is that with long-term use, decomposing sawdust is a favorite food/environment for the Trichoderma fungi (a beneficial fungus) that parasitizes harmful lawn funguses. Nobody came up with that, through the entire thread.

It will take someone starting on horse bed pellets at least five years to get to the point where there is enough sawdust in the soil itself (beyond what is on the surface) to hope for a sharp rise in Trichoderma populations that are appreciably above what you already have in your soil. If that is too long a timeframe for your purposes, then either be happy with the increase in tilth or spend your money on something else - there is no magic in horse bed pellets in the short or intermediate terms.