Milorganite - Why You Shouldn't Use It As Your Only Lawn Fertilizer

so today I want to talk a little bit about milorganite now I want to preface this video right away by saying that I'm not creating it to cause a bunch of controversy or try to get you to sway away from using the product I know that a lot of you like the product of course I use the product and I have been for many years - with great results but I think there's one thing that we might be forgetting when using milorganite and specifically when you're using only milorganite in your yard so today let's talk a little bit more about that and explain exactly what I'm talking about [Music] so let's quickly start out with a couple of the benefits of using the Lord Knight now because it's going to require microbe soil activity to actually break this down then we're not just feeding the grass when we put this down but we're actually feeding the soil and we're building the soil so over the years that I've been using it I feel like my soil has improved a little bit it's hard to measure that exactly between using a synthetic fertilizer and something like milorganite in theory though if you're using a synthetic fertilizer to feed the grass or something wrong with that but we're pretty much just feeding the grass at that point and once you stop using that fertilizer it's going to continue to need that feeding in order to thrive so in theory if you're building the soil you're just making more improvements there instead of feeding just the grass along a couple other quick benefits to mention would be that this product is very user friendly you can put it down in heat you can put it down on a dry yard you can put it down in so many scenarios where most people who are just getting started with lawn care there might be a little bit unsure of what to use for fertilizers and so this one is very very safe to use there's no risk of burning the lawn by using a synthetic product so that's another benefit one other thing that's a benefit is that it contains iron so not only does grass green up quite a bit from nitrogen but iron is really the secret to a dark green yard so this contains a little bit of iron in there too and you'll notice probably around a week after you apply it or shortly after you apply it you'll notice a dark greening of the yard and that is the iron what I really wanted to get to today we're talking about milorganite is actually the NPK so the NPK of course is the macronutrients that are listed on the bag here so it lists a six for zero for what I'm using right now some of the old versions were five for zero not a big difference here so of course we have the six being the nitrogen and of course our grass needs nitrogen it needs us to thrive and depending on the grass type that you have it needs a certain amount of nitrogen every year to really do well now we get to the second number which is four and that's going to be phosphorus which is helping us to mainly build the root system then we get to the last number which on milorganite is a zero and that would be potassium so here's where we come to the point of this video very quickly is that if we're going to switch to a product like Malaga and I completely switch to this and use no other products in our yard zero becomes more important than you would think it does what I believe this happened a little bit in the rage over milorganite is that people forget that the NPK levels are there for a reason and that we can't just think that nitrogen is important alone or phosphorus alone or that potassium isn't important at all so if we switch to this product completely of course we're going to be getting our nitrogen and we're going to be getting phosphorous although what I'm going to show you here in a second in my soil test is that maybe the phosphorus can get too too high of a level and also when we don't have any potassium at all and we're leaving that out application over application and over time back is going to create a little bit of an issue for us so potassium is important to the lawn because it's going to help with the overall health of the grass and also it helps us to build some resistance against diseases so without that potassium there we're kind of leaving ourselves open to a grass plant that maybe can't defend disease quite as well and overall we could do a little bit better with the overall health of the plant with some potassium okay so let's look at my soil tests that I completed from earlier this spring now of course this was early in the spring before I put down any fertilizer of any kind for the season so let's look at this here for a second and the first thing that's probably gonna jump out to you is to look at our pee level so of course the phosphorus there is pretty much off the chart as high as it can get so what I attributed starter fertilizer that I've been using for some renovations things like that but also the fact that I continue to use milorganite over and over and I continue to use that phosphorus in there that's going to kind of build things up over time and as we look at this chart here then we can see that of course that's what the results are showing that my phosphorus levels are off the charts another thing to notice here is that my K level is pretty low and so because I use a little bit of synthetic fertilizers in the fall I get a little bit of that here and there a few of the different products that I use with that starter fertilizer sometimes has some potassium in it as well but we're seeing that my K levels are a little bit low and they could be brought up to kind of help me fight off some of my fungus problems that I've been having this year and just different things to help strengthen the grass overall we look at the rest of the other things happening here so them calcium is very high and my iron is fairly low in this test so I can be using a little more iron to make the grass a little bit greener and darker as well and overall my pH is not too bad it's in a the acceptable level there as well so I just want to quickly show you that soil test I recommend that you get a soil test if you've never done one of these so you can do it now still this year but I would suggest before you start things next spring to get a soil test done it's very easy I have a video on that as well but this is going to give you a better idea of what's going on in your specific soil what is available there for the grass plant and what you might need to add as far as different fertilizers or things to actually improve your overall health of the lawn well this is important because if we just we just think that all of these fertilizers including milorganite are going to solve all of our problems for all times and we just forget about everything else and the importance of these actual nutrients for the lawn of course the lawn is probably going to look ok in the short term but if we want it to be the best that it can be the soil tests are important and adding the things that they recommend for nutrients are also very important so if you've decided to use milorganite and you've decided that that's a product you'd like to use going forward there's nothing wrong with that the only thing in this video that I was trying to suggest is that my results of my soil tests have also been showing that I need to add a little bit more potassium into my program in order to bring that level up a little bit and the fact that milorganite has zero in it if we were just to switch to that fertilizer and nothing else then we're not adding potassium at all and that could be a problem over time so when Allen first started showing milorganite in his videos I believe he did recommend to rotate this with maybe another organic product like like the ringer product or something that does have some potassium in it and I think that's just gotten lost in the shuffle a little bit along the way it's something that I've been thinking about after looking at my soil test and after just seeing a lot of buzz around milorganite which of course like I said I enjoy and I do use the products you but I wanted to make that recommendation today to not forget about potassium and look into some other organic products that you could use if you want an organic lawn that are just going to rotate these things a little bit for you and help you have a balanced amount of nutrient in your yard so I'll be trying to raise my potassium levels a little bit next year with some products so gonna be using the larga night as part of my program but I'm gonna supplement that with a few other things just so we don't forget about that potassium level thank you guys for watching this one if you have any questions let me know we'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Ryan Knorr Lawn Care

Views: 318,674

Keywords: milorganite, milorganite results, milorganite shortage, milorganite fertilizer, why you shouldn't use milorganite, organic fertilizer, lawn, lawn care, lawn care tips, why use milorganite, milorganite before and after, milorganite winner, lawn fertilizer

Id: U-3sBTHR88I

Length: 7min 19sec (439 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 09 2018