Come visit us at NE Grows February 1-3 at the Boston Convention Center – Booth #2452!

PJC is a manufacturer and distributor of organic fertilizers and soil amendments. We provide product, consulting and business tools to landscapers, schools, and municipalities that want to transition from a conventional approach to an all natural organic turf care program for the maintenance of their lawns and athletic fields.

This 5-day intensive course covers all aspects of designing and managing naturally- beautiful landscapes that protect the health of people, pets, and local ecosystems. Thirty hours of instruction include site analysis and design, organic turf, soil fertility, water conservation, and the control of pests, diseases and invasive species.

For more information, visit www.organiclandcare.net or contact the Program Coordinator, Caro Roszell at (508) 360-0874 or caro@nofamass.org. Registration is $520 if registering by Dec 17 (includes daily locally-sourced lunch). Professional Accreditation is optional. 15% off total registration for groups of three or more.

Soil Amendments: Most soil amendments can be applied until the ground freezes and/or leaves fall. Apply based on soil test results: lime (calcitic or dolomitic), gypsum, humates, etc. Avoid the application of excess N application in late fall to help harden off the turf for the winter season and avoid diseases that can occur under cold weather conditions on lawns and athletic fields that have not had the opportunity to appropriately harden off.

Turf Blankets: protect athletic fields from harsh winter conditions and promote faster growth and green-up in the spring. With the use of turf blankets late season repairs and seeding are still possible creating an environment that keeps the soil warm.

Leaves: mulch leaves while mowing to add valuable organic matter –carbon – for as long as practical. After that mow and bag (or tarp) removing all leaf litter before the snow. Leaf litter harbors fungi and promotes disease that can damage the grass and plants. One caution, make certain that you are not mulching Maple leaves that may have a fungal disease like Tar Spot. It is best to rake and destroy these leaves rather than using them in the mulch where the spores can overwinter and re-infect the Maple leaves.

Make Notes for Spring: note any troubled spots so you are ready to top dress, over seed and budget for it in the spring.

Equipment Maintenance: while it’s easy to think you’ll get to maintain the equipment over the winter it usually doesn’t work that way. So at a minimum when putting your mowers, blowers and trimmers away for the season drain gas lines, check fluids, sharpen blades and clean off debris from the season. If you’re a little more ambitious change the oil, replace sparkplugs and fuel filters. This will make getting going next season a lot easier.

The function of limestone is to reduce the acidity of the soil and change the pH (potential Hydrogen). Liming provides three potential benefits important to growing healthy turf; improves soil chemistry, encourages beneficial soil biology, and improves soil structure.

Improve Soil Chemistry. Soils range from 0 being very acidic to 14 being very alkaline with a pH value of 7.0 as neutral. Because of how pH is measured what appears to be a small change can mean a lot: a pH of 6 is 10 times more acid than a pH of 7.0, 5.0 is 100 times more acidic than pH of 7.0; while a pH of 4.0 is 1,000 more acidic than that of pH of 7.0. Studies show potential crop yields are reduced dramatically with soil pH <5.0. Bringing pH into optimal range can increase yield by 10-40%. Turf grass grows best in soil with a pH of 6.5 – 6.8. Soils in this range encourage root growth and make more nutrients available to the grass.

Encourage Biology. Microbial activity is affected by pH. Soils that are more acidic tend to be fungal dominant. Soils that are in the 6.5 – 6.8 pH range tend to be more balanced between fungal and bacterial activity. Encouraging this microbial activity contributes to the availability of nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorous in the soil.
Earthworms are also affected by the pH. They need the pH to be near neutral for their sticky mucous or slime. The slime has several purposes, including allowing the earthworm to breathe through its skin. The slime also acts as a lubricant; facilitating their burrowing. The slime also helps to form soil aggregates.

Improve Soil Structure. The formation of soil aggregates helps to improve the soil’s structure. The addition of calcium through the liming process also helps improve soil structure. Calcium and magnesium stabilize soil aggregates via the formation of organic matter – clay bridges. Aggregate stability increases soil porosity and tilth. Soil must be able to breathe to grow grass.

How much and What Kind of Lime to Apply? Often, not nearly enough lime is put down to either help or hurt the soil chemistry. It is critical to soil test with a reputable laboratory for pH, buffer pH, Calcium and Magnesium to determine how much and what kind of lime to use – dolomitic vs. calcitic.

Buffer pH provides an indication of the soil’s potential acidity, resistance to change and how much lime will be necessary to cause a change in the soil’s pH. Sandy soils tend to have a high Buffer pH while rich organic soils have a lower Buffer pH. The difference can be dramatic with respect to the amount of product required even in soil with the same pH reading. Using conventional lime, soil with a pH of 6.2 and buffer pH of 6.8 would require roughly 46 lbs/1000SF, where as soils with a pH of 6.2 and buffer pH of 6.4 would require 138 lbs/1000SF.

The decision on which lime to use, calcitic or dolomitic, should be based on the Calcium to Magnesium ratio found on the soil test (ideal Ca:Mg range is 7:1 – 15:1). Dolomitic lime contains both calcium and magnesium while calcitic lime contains primarily calcium. Unless your soil needs additional magnesium, dolomite should not be used. Calcium is the most important nutrient and plays a major role in strengthening the plants physical structure, increases nutrient uptake, protects the plant from disease and improves soil structure. Without realizing it you may be raising the pH while creating an imbalance in the Calcium to Magnesium ratio which can create other problems (i.e., soils that are not in balance tend to be more prone to compaction and exhibit greater weed pressure than those that are in balance).

Due to the high labor costs associated with putting down large amounts of conventional lime products we recommend a line of high efficiency lime products ( HiCal Lime and Gypsum humates and CAL/MAG Turf Pro data sheets). Typically these products require only 1/5th the amount of their conventional counterparts. While the product costs are higher it is more than offset by lower associated labor costs for the application.

When to Apply? Lime can be applied anytime during the season and up until the ground freezes in late fall. Because it can take up to 6 months for lime to affect soil chemistry the sooner in the season it’s applied the better. It is often applied in the fall to set up for the spring growing season. Depending on the pH/Buffer pH spring and fall applications may be required over subsequent years.

A final word of caution when adjusting soil pH . . . be sensitive to other plants sharing the same space and their soil chemistry requirements (i.e. Oak Trees, Pine Trees, like a lower pH) . . . so don’t sacrifice the gorgeous old oak tree in an effort to grow grass under it.

Please contact PJC & Company at 978-432-1019 or info@pjcecological.com for more information on our lime products or if you have any questions on what liming product to use.

To learn more about the project, a collaboration between a volunteer group of parents and the Waunakee School District please check out their recently launched web site

They are now setting their sights on larger media outreach, with press releases and will also be brainstorming on potential spring collaborations with other local environmental groups, UW-Madison and Dr. Porter, that may include a public showing of A Chemical Reaction and panel discussion with Paul Tukey and others.

Kentucky bluegrass takes up to 28 days to germinate; so if you get it started now there is a real possibility that we could encounter a frost in the Northeast before the plants can get established.

For more specifics on seed click to see an earlier post.

Please remember getting seed established now will just make for thicker, richer lawns next season.

Methyl bromide is a soil fumigant, injected into the soil to kill pests, weeds, and diseases prior to planting crops. Methyl bromide is scheduled to be phased out by 2015.

The original suit was brought in 1999. The obvious question “Why does it take so Long?”

To Read More

As such, DuPont is implementing a “voluntary” suspension of sale of Imprelis® herbicide, and will soon be conducting a product return and refund program for the product.

The New York Times reported on July 14, 2011, that the new Dupont herbicide Imprelis® is suspected in the deaths of thousands of Norway spruces, eastern white pines and other trees on lawns and golf courses across the country.

On May 25, 2011, the U.S. Composting Council (USCC) began warning composters to watch out for grass clippings contaminated with a new herbicide from DuPont – Imprelis®.

Somewhat ironically; Dupont states in their FAQ that when disposing a tree damaged by Imprelis® “do not chip the tree for use in mulch or compost.”