I am planning on putting down soybean meal or cracked corn. What is the application rate of these products? How heavy should I be applying them?

There really isn't an established app rate, per se, but at least I can give you a guide.

15 pounds of soy per thousand square feet will give you a great feeding for the lawn. More or less is fine, but soy can stink at high amounts as it decays.

Corn differs. If you want the fungal prevention, 10 pounds per thousand is just fine.

If you're trying to transform the soil, anything up to 80 per thousand is entirely acceptable. Corn has much less tendency to smell.

For a good feeding, 30-60 per thousand is great. Corn's not a heavy-hitter in terms of protein (which translates to nitrogen).

Thanks Morph,
I appreciate the advice and will use accordingly. I am a new user on the forums and enjoy reading all your posts and I am learning more everyday thanks to you and the others on the forums. I am looking forward to improving my new lawn as it needs work and I value your information greatly. I will start with the corn because I want to get some fungal protection in my soil and i have seen areas of concern.

I used alot of corn last year because it was cheap and easy to get. Once the decay started getting faster I was using 50 lbs of cracked corn weekly over 1300sqft. With that said I was also adding 20lbs of soy weekly or switching to milorganite.

I really liked using soy and corn

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ez2luvlawn wrote:Thanks Morph,
I appreciate the advice and will use accordingly. I am a new user on the forums and enjoy reading all your posts and I am learning more everyday thanks to you and the others on the forums. I am looking forward to improving my new lawn as it needs work and I value your information greatly. I will start with the corn because I want to get some fungal protection in my soil and i have seen areas of concern.

It's more of a preventative than a cure, so it may help you going forward but won't wipe any existing fungal diseases terribly effectively. One last app of a fungicide might be called for, depending on the disease.

Just as a sidenote, corn and soy can be applied at the same time (for fungal protection and feeding both). There are no real limits on what you can do, and the soil microbes certainly don't get concerned about it. To them it's like Surf and Turf, or a good potato with a nice steak.

I guess Surf and Turf would actually be kelp and soy...

ez2luvlawn wrote:I am planning on putting down soybean meal or cracked corn. What is the application rate of these products? How heavy should I be applying them?

I'm not exactly sure where you are in Southern MN, but if you have a Fleet Farm nearby they have great sales several times a season on Milorganite. If you can wait for the next sale, it typically sells for $6-7 for a 36 lb. bag.

At least from the research that I've done here in the Twin Cities, it seems like Milorganite is just the best bang for the buck. So much so that I haven't bothered looking for anything else anymore. Maybe you have access to more feed mills down south, though?

I hate cracked corn. It takes a while to decompose and it feels like you are walking on pebbles. Its like "princess and the pea: turf version" I think it is expensive for the nutritional value and I hate looking at it. Did I mention I hate it? Just becuase I don't like it doesn't mean it won't work for you. By all means give it a shot and see what you think.

I never noticed the pebble thing, but I have the proverbial 12 mattresses in a thick lawn and always wear shoes anyway.

Yes, decay tends to be slower, particularly in a soil that's not been organic for a while. And feeding is poor, very poor. I wouldn't recommend using it as a feeding, actually. For fungal control it's great, though.

MorpheusPA wrote:I never noticed the pebble thing, but I have the proverbial 12 mattresses in a thick lawn and always wear shoes anyway.

I hardly ever wear shoes in the yard. I like the feeling of healthy turfgrass on my feet.

I applied a lot of CC last year in an attempt to limit the disease issues. I have such poor soil it takes a long time for anything to decompose. I was stepping on it all year. This year I am not going to drop any. Most likely none next year too.


ez2luvlawn - how big is your yard?

simpson wrote:I used alot of corn last year because it was cheap and easy to get.

Not really cheap because as Morp points out you have to use so much of it to get the same bang as Soy Bean with respect to nitrogen. I bet you a dollar to a doughnut SBM is less expensive per application rate of 1lb/1000ft2 nitrogen. Not too mention a whole lot less work like 75% less work and time.

The only negative to using SBM is the odor for a while. It has that locker room odorl with really old musty smell of socks and jock straps in the lockers needing burned or buried.

texasweed wrote:

simpson wrote:I used alot of corn last year because it was cheap and easy to get.

Not really cheap because as Morp points out you have to use so much of it to get the same bang as Soy Bean with respect to nitrogen. I bet you a dollar to a doughnut SBM is less expensive per application rate of 1lb/1000ft2 nitrogen. Not too mention a whole lot less work like 75% less work and time.

No bet, I know you're right, so let's do the math:

Soy: $12.47 per bag (50 lbs), 15 per K required, $3.74 per K per feeding.
Corn: $9.27 per bag (50 lbs, very expensive this year), 60 per K required, $11.12 per K per feeding
Corn, normal year: $6.50 per bag (50 lbs), $7.80 per K per feeding.

Even in a more normal year, corn would be twice the square footage cost compared to soy for the same feeding (roughly, you'll do better on P and K with the corn).

Great for soil conditioning if you can get it cheap as the mass going down can really go high without scent. Great for fungal control. Terrible for feeding.

The only negative to using SBM is the odor for a while. It has that locker room odorl with really old musty smell of socks and jock straps in the lockers needing burned or buried.

Yeah, I got that...scent...once. It was...wow. That's just the only way to describe it. Other than "Yuck."

MorpheusPA wrote:No bet, I know you're right

I only gamble when I am pretty dang sure I am right. That is how i run a biz.

FWIW the high corn and even SBM prices are jacked up by government inference with your tax dollars. It is wreaking havoc across the globe burning food for ethanol, and bio-diesel. Poor nations cannot afford food. Example most the trouble in the Mid East right now trying to oust dictator governments aligned with USA policy causing inflation and food shortages..

Time for entitlement programs (ethanol and RE) to end and let the FREE MARKET run its course.

Don't forget massive Chinese, Indian, and British crop failures again this year. Guess where they buy a lot of their food? Yep, us. Food prices will continue to rise.

I never thought it made much sense to burn a food product (although I guess you could argue it makes little sense to toss it on the lawn as well). Honestly, sedgegrass is more efficient. And there's boat-loads of processable natural gas in every single city dump across the nation.

I never thought it made much sense to burn a food product (although I guess you could argue it makes little sense to toss it on the lawn as well).

The problem with putting ethanol in gas is it drops your gas milage, so you end up essentially buying more fuel. Remember oxygenated fuel, same thing fools your oxygen sensor into a lean condition in the engine which caused the car to use more fuel. It's like eating low fat stuff you end up eating more and still your gut is hanging over your belt. You can burn Veg. oil in diesels.

Bavaria wrote: The problem with putting ethanol in gas is it drops your gas milage, so you end up essentially buying more fuel.

That only scratches the surface. There are 3 bigger issues in my opinion.

1. You and I pay ethanol distillers 54-cents/gal to make ethanol, and another 45 cents to refiners to blend the ethanol into gasoline. Like any subsidy they are used to make an otherwise unprofitable business profitable. Note I hear the House and Senate voted to discontinue the subsidies to Ethanol producers. However Obama threatens he will VETO the bill if passed.

What the Senate and House failed to do is remove the mandate for ethanol to be blended into gasoline. So whether or not Obama veto's the bill or not we are screwed. If signed into law you will see a huge increase in the price of gasoline at the pump because of the mandate to use ethanol, or we continue to pay $6.5 B in taxes for subsidies.

2. Net energy loss. Depending on which expert or study you want to read, there is no or little gain in net energy making ethanol. In other words it takes as much or more energy to make a gallon of ethanol, then it contains.

3. Currently 40% of all the USA corn production goes to making ethanol which results in much higher food prices.

Bavaria wrote:You can burn Veg. oil in diesels.

You can, but that does not mean we should. About 10 years ago we experimented using veg oil as fuel in our tractors. We built a make shift reactor and started refining used cooking oil to make diesel. At the time the used veg oil was free. Restaurants had to pay people to pick up used oil and dispose of it. Then one day 60 Minutes idiots did a documentary with some guy making his own diesel fuel from used veg oil. Almost over night restaurants realized they had a commodity product and not a waste material. They started charging for their used veg oil via highest bid.

Once that happened pretty much ended home brew diesel fuel because it now cost more to make diesel from veg oil, than buying it from a dino diesel dealer. Looking back it does not really matter because if we converted all the earths arable land, including your nice lawn, to grow fuel stock, it would only provide the world with about 25% of current fuel demands. Not too mention you would have nothing to ea if you did.

This is way OT, but I have a question...do we need to put anything in gas? I know lead was to decrease knocking, and...well, bad idea. Some city soils still show high lead levels because of that.

MTBE, ditto, but that shows up in water supplies and isn't something you want to be drinking.

At least in my experience, ethanol increases knocking in an engine.

Not that reducing gas usage with an additive isn't a good idea, but ethanol kind of rots as an additive, all things considered. Plus I have no idea if we have any other options that are reasonably non-toxic and reasonably available.

I agree 100% with TW.Most The germans have used cooking oil for a while, I spoke with a German guy from Nurburg Germ. and he said his brother years ago converted a Benz to burn v. oil and he said the fuel tank was split in two halves, one side had Diesel and one with oil, because he said the v. oil wasn't able to burn until the engine temp. got near normal operating temp. I say we scrap the whole corn burning thing and give us our corn for lawns, cattle and other useful things instead of running out tailpipes. Oh by the way I can tell a lot of driveability complaints from customers esp. in the summer which is fuel related. Engines don't like it!

Bavaria wrote:Engines don't like it!

The owners manual for my car specifically says not to use any ethanol siting poorer engine performance and poorer reliability.

Morph- Ethanol actually is higher octane (110 or so) than gasoline so it should reduce engine knock (pre-ignition). The knock issue may stem from the fact that ethanol dissolves the water in fuel tanks and that causes fuel contamination. Do a search on Advanced Lean Burn Technology. Mercedes has this technology perfected for gasoline engines and will not bring it to the US due the the poor quality of US fuel. I have a diesel with this tech- and many are experiencing fuel pump failures due to the poor lubricity the Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel. I now use B5 (5% Bio-diesel) as it significantly helps with the lubricity of the fuel.

I'm glad you talked about the fuel pump failures, I have noticed an increase in that. I am not really a diesel expert, I do a few things on them. Germany is always blaming our fuel in the US. However look what happened to the Black Forest. They resisted catalists for years. A lot of "Grey Market" cars came into the US and had to be converted to our standards. I see the end result of gas issues, the bottom line is trying to make the car run properly with our fuel which can be a problem.