Sumagreen revisited

[Smallaxe]

Originally Posted by Skipster

... How do you manage those things? You aerate to encourage soil oxygenation and plant root function, irrigate to maintain plant life, and maintain pH in the 5.5 to 6.5 range. Organic substrates will occur from turf roots, thatch (ALL grasses produce thatch), and returning grass clippings to the lawn. Sandy soils could benefit from some OM addition, but the effect is usually only noticeable during the establishment phase.



Again, read your own link:

"bear in mind that amendments such as compost, which is essentially microbially decomposed organic materials, do not contain high levels of readily available carbon. Rather, they provide slowly useable substrates and contribute directly to the soil organic matter pool."

Dumping compost on a lawn does very little to improve turf health and microbial activity of soils that already have at least some OM present. Remember, you still need proper aeration, pH, and moisture just to break down compost. You won't get any benefit from the compost if the soil already has some OM present.

The lesson from your link and from the research is to manage turf how the universities have been telling us for quite some time: proper aeration, pH management, proper irrigation, proper fertility, and return the clippings to the lawn. It's not really any harder than that.

I'm not sure why you are taking such an antagonistic attitude towards me and my wish to move beyond this intro. 101 article...
Define Proper Irrigation, How often to aerate and Then we'll know what the Universities have been telling us all along...

So the Sumagreen was likely a "Flash in the Pan" probably along the lines of compost Tea... quick action of converting some OM to useable form but will eventually eat up the food sources in the soil, the added humates and even the plant hormones... once they're gone the turf should return to normal growth...
Maybe the stuff should be used only in the Fall as the grasses are starting to slow top growth but the warm soil continues to build root mass to the best of its ability... JMO...