check out this trugreen program

Picked up a customer today and he gave me the print outs from the past year with trugreen. This lawn is a mix of centipede and bermuda. Is this a normal program for them or is this top of the line? Looks like a lot of fertilizer.

Round 1 - feburary - dormant turf - potassium chloride fert and MCPA, Vanquish herb
Round 2- June - fully green turf - ammonium sulfate fert and manor/dismiss herb mix
round 3 - july - green turf - urea/potassium chloride fert and manor/dismiss herb mix
round 4 - sept - turf at end of growing - aluminum sulfate fert and manor/dismiss herb mix
round 5 - oct - turf should be dormant - potassuim to roots and vanquish/princep herb mix
round 6 - nov - urea fert and escalade

I'm wondering about so much fertilizer. Looks like .5-.75 N per app but I only fert 3-4 times a year for good color. Most of the apps are during the fall/winter when the turf is dormant. The peak growing season and when I fert is May-August.

WOuld love to see what you guys thought of this, especially you southern guys.

 

I doubt this schedule actually contains half of this.

My Ag inspector told me that TG sprays at a quarter of the label. They are trying to make this a 12 step program in my neck of the woods. I wish them jacklegs luck, no one going to pay for 12 apps.
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I did my beat to decipher the tickets that te tech left behind. I was just curious why most of te apps were done on a dormant turf? Lawn looks good and weed free but i only fertilize warm season turf that is green.
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Sorry I'm in the North but if the grass is dormat it's not taking much in. Up here it is dormat and froze. Froze would be one difference between you down there and us up here. Just guessing. They are making work. Just busy being busy keeping the cash flow flowing and the guys working. I have heard they upsell a lot. As mentioned before if they are only putting down a true rate of 25% of what they charge for, Mr. Home owner could care less when he looks out.. it's green and very few weeds. After all they are the experts not the home owner. Some would say they are cheating, some would say they are great at marketing. Depending on what the P&L looks like they may be a great company to buy in to. Really all you can do is guess. Outside looking in I'd say just busy being busy and making cash.

 

I always laugh when I see something like this. What does that mean? I don't have a single product that has one absolute rate on the label -- all mine have ranges, like 2 to 4 oz/A or something like that. My CoolPower label says that it should be applied at 2.5 to 3.5 pints/A. So, does the Ag inspector mean that TG is spraying at a quarter of the 2.5 or the 3.5 rate? Most Ag inspectors I've talked to in my time in different states are row crop ag guys and don't know even which products are used on lawns, much less what rates to use.

How does a quarter of the label get you to 12 apps? I guess I don't understand that one, either.

 

My inspector told me that they are spraying at 1/4 the rate of what normally should be applied. Let's say 3way should be at 1oz per 1k sq ft, they are on putting out 0.25oz per 1k.

Why?

Here's my theory. They want to constantly be on your property for upsells. Its a dirty trick and seems to be working. They want to do just an ok job and want the customer to call the 1 800 number.
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We used label rate when I was there (25 years ago). However, sometimes the spray techs walked too fast. Thirty percent too fast equals 30 percent light on the rate. Same problem when spreading.

I don't understand warm season fertilizer practices. I only see 4 nitrogen applications. Aluminum sulfate (wrong) you mean ammonium sulfate--right?
Only dormant fert I see is November urea.

However I see six herbicide applications, is that right? Two of those are Vanquish, which I see is dicamba.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...sg=AFQjCNHuToIbb3IZuKj1a2q5srYbv93_dw&cad=rja

Yet I see no pre-emergent for crabgrass or winter annuals. How come?

Check the spelling on that.

 

I still don't see how the ag inspector knows what rate should be normally applied. The labels all give ranges, not single rates. University extension publications even give ranges, not single rates. I suppose TG could be using what the inspector thinks is a quarter of his favorite rate, but there is no one set rate -- just look at all the different rates people talk about on this website. And, this still doesn't tell me where the 12 app thing comes in.

It really sounds like your inspector doesn't know what he's talking about.

Riggle, warm-season practices are different than cool-season, but it looks like the centipedegrass that boogers this one up a bit. Bermudagrass generalyl requires 4 to 6#N/M/yr, but centipedegrass requires 1 to 2 #N/M/yr -- if you apply any more than that, the centipede gets worse. The specific mix of species (one in front/one in back, one in shade/one in sun, or totally mixed together), how much of which kind (more centipede or more bermuda), and what the customer wanted would be factors in management.

Centipedegrass seems to be sensitive to root-inhibiting PREs, like barricade, Pre-M, and dimension, among others. When applied in the fall, those can destroy the cold tolerance of centipedegrass and its ability to recover from winter injury in the spring. Most university recommendations also advise against PRE use before green-up in the spring, since centipede is so sensitive.

Its interesting to see some TG results, but I don't think I can make a judgment about their program from this one customer, especially with a cenitpede/bermuda mix.

 

Riggle. The Princep in that Oct app is what they are using for their Fall Pre-emergent. I don't apply ammonium sulfate here because our soils are already acidic but if I did it would be in liquid form and right as the grass was coming out of or going in to dormancy. It would not be my staple fert all year. I don't know what rates they apply nor do I care. I just hope they keep raising prices each year and telemarketing the crap out of people. I picked up 3 customers from them today and that was their 2 main gripes about TG.

P.S. All of them had weeds to some degree. That also helps the customer make up their mind a little easier.

 

No crabgrass pre. Only simazine for fall pre. Guy said they may have sprayed something wrong the year before that killed some areas. Might have skipped the pre to get those areas to fill in.

They fertilized in feb and nov when turf was dormant and no signs of greening up.

This lawn acutally looked ok, although it had been sprayed a month ago with 3way.