taking care of about half an acre of perennial rye in sandy soil. i'm thinking i need to start breaking my fertilizer schedule up to avoid fertilizing the groundwater rather than my lawn.
as a reference, i've played with different watering schedules and have started to go against the conventional wisdom by breaking the 1"/wk into about 4-5 times at 1/4" each. to give a sense of how sandy it is, i drained an entire 20k gallon pool in the back corner in about 6 hours and all that was there the entire time was about a 8 sq foot puddle about 1/2" deep i.e., the soil(sand) drains very very fast.
so my plan is to spray liquid fertilizer every 4-6 weeks depending on weather patterns. soil test shows need for 3/0/4 lbs per 1k sqft. so i'd spread over 6 moths or so (slow the application at peak temps). saw a study that confirmed a combination of liquid and granular was the most optimal so may throw in some granular (but will moderate to the 3/0/4 per yr in total)
i first thought to go with slow release fertilizer but was thinking probably even better to use liquid as it can be absorbed through the leaf structure rather than roots so less loss through drainage. after doing some research this is confirmed by a lot of university studies (rutgers/msu/kentucky/ohio state)
so wanted some words from the wise - any thoughts on the plan using liquid fertilizer on very sandy soil?
as a reference, i've played with different watering schedules and have started to go against the conventional wisdom by breaking the 1"/wk into about 4-5 times at 1/4" each. to give a sense of how sandy it is, i drained an entire 20k gallon pool in the back corner in about 6 hours and all that was there the entire time was about a 8 sq foot puddle about 1/2" deep i.e., the soil(sand) drains very very fast.
so my plan is to spray liquid fertilizer every 4-6 weeks depending on weather patterns. soil test shows need for 3/0/4 lbs per 1k sqft. so i'd spread over 6 moths or so (slow the application at peak temps). saw a study that confirmed a combination of liquid and granular was the most optimal so may throw in some granular (but will moderate to the 3/0/4 per yr in total)
i first thought to go with slow release fertilizer but was thinking probably even better to use liquid as it can be absorbed through the leaf structure rather than roots so less loss through drainage. after doing some research this is confirmed by a lot of university studies (rutgers/msu/kentucky/ohio state)
so wanted some words from the wise - any thoughts on the plan using liquid fertilizer on very sandy soil?