Home Lawn: Turf Tips

Soil sampling today for a healthier lawn next spring

If your lawn didn’t perform to your expectations during this growing season, despite your efforts with irrigation, fertilizer, pest management, etc., it could be due to a less than desirable soil pH and/or nutrient balance. Liming sources (calcitic lime and dolomitic lime) take months to alter the pH, so putting lime out now will give you a head start for next spring.

The winter rains during the idle months of turf growth will help get the lime reacting in the soil. No more than fifty pounds of a liming material per 1,000 square feet should be applied at any single application to an established lawn. Therefore, when soil pH is very low, it could take a couple of tons of lime per acre to actually get the soil within the range you need for good turf growth. This means you may have to apply lime several times, so the sooner you get started the quicker you will see results.

Not only does proper soil pH have an effect on the availability of necessary nutrients needed by the turf plants, but it also is important in the activity of microbes that help decompose the thatch that has been building over the growing season. Your local Extension office can help with submitting soil samples to the diagnostic lab, interpreting the analysis, and making fertilizer and liming recommendations to improve your lawn.

Published October 15, 2007

Dr. Wayne Wells is an Extension Professor and Turfgrass Specialist. His mailing address is Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Mail Stop 9555, Mississippi State, MS 39762. wwells@ext.msstate.edu