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Lawns are made up of thousands of small, hungry, individual plants. In fact, there's over 100,000 blades of grass in every square metre of lawn!
Grass grows quickly while it’s warm, using up lots of energy. Mowing also depletes the lawn’s energy reserves.
It's pretty easy to see why lawns need a helping hand to look their best.
It’s a common misconception that lawns get all the food they need from the sun and rain. Sadly, this isn’t true: all plants require additional nutrients to grow. Plants draw most of these nutrients from the soil around their roots. Nutrients are returned to the soil in a constant cycle, as microbes break down decomposing grass and plant matter.
Because grass clippings contain nutrients, removing them from your lawn prevents them from enriching the soil - these nutrients are permanently subtracted from the replenishment cycle. Over time, this means the nutrient bank in your soil starts to diminish; it’s what naturally happens when you continue to make withdrawals, but no deposits!
The good news? You can keep on mowing! Simply add lawn fertiliser, to replace the depleted nutrients. Regular fertilising keeps your lawn healthy and green right through the year. Applying a balanced, slow-release lawn fertiliser is the easiest way to supply your grass with the nutrients it needs, in the appropriate proportions.
Fertilising also helps with weed control in lawns, because the thicker, stronger grass can crowd out and suppress weed seedlings.
If you've noticed sparse growth and pale coloured grass, you’re seeing classic symptoms of a nutrient-poor lawn. Another downside: hungry lawns are more vulnerable to environmental stress and diseases.
It’s important to remember that each different nutrient has a particular function in regulating plant growth.
'Liebig’s law of the minimum' is a principle used in agriculture, that says the growth of plants is restricted by the scarcest nutrient: if any single nutrient is in short supply, it creates a bottleneck that limits the total growth of the plant.
That means you can throw lots of extra nutrients at a plant, but unless you increase the level of the one that’s lacking, you won’t achieve the growth you're looking for. It’s important to correct nutrient deficiencies to maintain a healthy balance, to ensure plants reach their full potential.
The primary nutrients (macronutrients) in plants are N-P-K, the ‘big three’: Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P), and Potassium (K). Although these macronutrients are essential in all plants, for a lawn, the ideal proportion of each nutrient is very specific. This is why we recommend you stick to lawn fertilisers for feeding lawns.
Cheaper fertilisers tend to rely on simple, fast-release forms of nitrogen, to give a lawn an instant boost. This works really well...but only for a short time. These fertilisers stimulate a surge of growth, a little like a 'sugar rush'. Unfortunately, this also triggers Liebig's Law, because the lawn will need extra phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur and various trace elements to support the growth frenzy. If any of these are in short supply, the lawn growth can crash, like an exhausted toddler.
A slow-release lawn fertiliser is always a better choice than a ‘quick fix’, to deliver you consistent, long-term results.
Fortunately, you can still achieve rapid greening if you have an event coming up. If you select a fertiliser with a blend of fast-release and slow-release nitrogen ingredients, it gives you the speedy green-up you want, then backs it up with a solid nutrient base to maintain and sustain the growth flush.
N: this is the percentage of Nitrogen in the product. Nitrogen is the primary nutrient to drive growth and keep lawns green, plus it helps with resistance to disease and wear tolerance.
P: the percentage of Phosphorus in the product. Phosphorus is essential for photosynthesis and energy transfer within the plant. It promotes healthy root development, which improves nutrient uptake and encourages more growth.
K: the percentage of Potassium in the product. Potassium strengthens grass metabolism at the cellular level. It helps grass to retain water and increases tolerance of tough climatic conditions e.g., drought or frosts.
If we use the NPK ratio of Yates Dynamic Lifter as an example, the 'NPK analysis' is expressed as 3.2 : 2.6 : 1.3 +TE. This means it contains 3.2% Nitrogen, 2.6% Phosphorus and 1.2% Potassium. TE stands for trace elements (aka micronutrients).
Fertiliser is generally either a granular, or liquid format. Granular plant foods are made up of solid granules or 'prills', while liquid fertiliser contains water-soluble ingredients. Liquid types tend to be absorbed by plants very quickly. Granular fertilisers take a little more time to be broken down, so plants can access their nutrients.
Organic or natural fertilisers can fall under either of the categories above. Most organic fertilisers are made from feedstock derived from plants or animals, like composted animal manure, blood & bone, or feather meal.
There are also natural fertilisers that aren’t made from organic feedstock, like dolomite lime or sulfate of potash: these can still become certified organic inputs because they originate from natural mineral deposits in the earth. A fertiliser that contains any synthetic (man-made) ingredient is never acceptable as an organic input.
Yates Dynamic Lifter Organic Lawn Food, which combines composted chicken manure, blood & bone, fish and seaweed, is ideal to enrich the structure of the soil. It adds organic content that encourages earthworms and beneficial soil micro-organisms, that in turn help to improve the soils porosity (drainage) and movement of oxygen.
Keeping your microbes happy is the secret to a good lawn, because the microbes break down fertiliser into a form that lawn grass can absorb! When you feed your lawn, you’re actually feeding the soil microbes: they respond by feeding the grass for you.
This category often causes confusion, as there are some very different types of fertiliser under the general ‘granular’ description.
It’s very common for fertiliser to be supplied as prills, which are tiny spherical pellets, created by melting the raw fertiliser. This is done to make handling and application easier, plus it reduces dust. Different prills can then be blended into a mix to make up a tailored fertiliser recipe.
If the fertiliser is dissolved into a specific combination of ingredients before it gets melted into prills, it’s known as a granulated fertiliser. They’re easy to spot as the prills are all the same colour. Granulated fertilisers deliver a uniform, consistent result without any patchiness.
One of the downsides of using uncoated fertiliser blends is ‘fertiliser burn’, which can be caused by overdoing the application, or not applying enough water with the fertiliser. Because granular fertilisers contain salts, if there isn’t enough water supplied the fertiliser will absorb water by sucking it out of the grass plants, which causes leaf burn. The risk of fertiliser burn increases in higher temperatures..
To reduce the risk of burning, premium lawn fertilisers can be coated with a thin layer of polymer, which gives them excellent slow-release qualities. The polymer coating degrades at a very precise rate when moist, to release their contents over a gradual, controlled period. By creating a blend of different coatings, timed to release in multiple phases, these fertilisers provide a sustained feed over a very long duration.
Because newly sown lawns are especially prone to fertiliser burn, we have a product which is safe to use on freshly sown grass. Yates Lawn Fertiliser for New Lawns is designed to give your new lawn the right nutrients to encourage fast establishment of grass, while feeding for up to 12 weeks.
There are real advantages to using a premium slow-release fertiliser. Reduced frequency of application is an obvious one, but avoiding surges or spikes in growth and nutrient overload is also a major benefit. Slow-release fertilisers perform consistently well throughout the year, because they supply just enough nutrients to match the grass’s needs, whether it’s dormant or growing flat-out. They tend to be more expensive than standard granular fertilisers, but we think the benefits make this type of fertiliser the best value for money.
Your lawn grass and microbial soil community underneath it are in sync with each other, and with the seasons - when the grass becomes dormant, the microbes are also snoozing. As soil temperature rises and everything begins to speed up, grass nutrition is able to accelerate, because most of the nitrogen in slow-release fertilisers is actually 'unlocked' for grass by soil microbes.
For controlled release lawn foods, this means that nutrients are only supplied at the rate grass can use them; in comparison, the excess nutrients in fast-release fertilisers can go to waste at cooler times of the year. If you feed your lawn a big dump of fast-release nitrogen in cold conditions, it won't be completely absorbed - the excess nitrates can remain in the soil and will eventually leach into groundwater.
Yates Lawn Fertiliser Twice A Year is a professional grade controlled release granular fertiliser, suitable for all New Zealand lawn types: including kikuyu, ryegrass and fescue. Designed to give you a strong, green and healthy lawn, Yates Lawn Fertiliser Twice a Year releases nitrogen and potassium for up to 6 months, so you achieve a long-lasting consistent result, without surge growth. Nutrient runoff and nitrate leaching are also minimised.
Yates Lawn Fertiliser Quarterly is a premium granular lawn food designed to give you a strong, green and healthy lawn. The fine granules dissolve when watered in and quickly filter down to the roots. Ideal for all lawn types, it combines the benefits of both fast-acting and gradually released nitrogen: the fast release component provides rapid results in 7 days, while the slow release feeds over a prolonged 12 week period.
Liquid lawn fertilisers offer some great advantages, especially in hose-on bottles. The main bonus is ease of application: you can cover an area faster than with granular format fertilisers, and it's easy to give your area an accurate dosage. Liquid fertilisers also tend to absorb straight into grass leaves, which delivers rapid results.
Traditionally, liquid lawn foods have only been available in fast-release versions, but Yates has overcome this limitation. We are proud to have developed a first-to-market slow-release liquid fertiliser, that feeds your lawn gradually for up to 12 weeks. This innovative product combines the benefits of a liquid formulation with all the advantages of a slow release fertiliser. Even better, it’s a hose-on, for ultimate convenience!
Yates Lawn Fertiliser Quarterly - Hose On is a fully-featured lawn food that delivers thicker, greener and healthier lawns, powered by 6 state-of-the-art ingredients. It features seaweed to reduce lawn stress, humates to stimulate the beneficial lawn microbes that feed your grass, iron, magnesium and trace elements to deliver a deep green, lush lawn and a wetting agent to boost water penetration into soil and improve soil structure.
The clever methylene urea formulation delivers the extended 12-week feed duration, with the added bonus of reducing nitrogen leaching into groundwater.
Applying your fertiliser accurately begins by measuring out your area. This will help determine the coverage amount, to ensure you don’t over or under apply.
When applying a granular fertiliser, it’s important to follow up this fertiliser with a generous amount of water. Water it in well after application and again the next day, to ensure the fertiliser gets into the soil. Following up with regular watering over the next 21 days is vital, as the lawn will need water to supplement its new growth!
Always apply fertiliser proactively, don’t wait until the lawn starts to look unhealthy! Resurrecting a sad, nutrient-depleted lawn always requires more time and cash than sticking to a regular fertilising schedule does. The fertilising rule of thumb is ‘light and frequent’, for best results.
After you apply a fertiliser, note the timeframe stated on the pack, make a note in your diary or calendar and do another application before the nutrient levels drop off.
To make the most of your fertiliser, you'll need to:
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