Soil Testing

If you're fertilizing as a Joe-shmoe homeowner, you're probably fertilizing too much. On average, homeowners who get a soil testing of their lawn's soil (plus or minus $25) will save more money in the long run. A soil test will tell you what type of nutrients you actually need instead of just "adding fertilizer" to the soil, I promise you'll probably be adding less fertilizer than you originally were.

What to know from your soil test

Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) is the ability of the soil to exchange cations or in other words nutrients. Sands have very low CEC and clays are very high but have poor soil growing conditions for turfs.
 
Most important cations for turf/plant growth: Hydrogen, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Sodium, Ammonium
 
The pH of a soil also plays an important part in turf/plant growth. The pH scale ranges from 1-14: 0-6 being acidic and 8-14 being alkaline/basic and 7 is neutral. If soil is too acidic (excessively low) think about “liming” it. Add gypsum when Ca is needed but no pH change is necessary and also at the same time that there is too much  sodium
 
Potassium is recommended when turf has undergone considerable change in the past 3 decades. 

Maximum tissue growth occurs at lower levels of pH
 
Zinc and Manganese at high levels cause a potential hazard and can become a toxicity to turf. 


To collect a soil sample from your own grass- collect 15-20 random samples between 3-6 in.