The green spots in the lawn that are coming from the dog pee is not from the acid in their pee. Essentially where your dogs are peeing the lawn is getting a blast of fertilizer. The best way to find out if your soil is acidic is to have the soil tested.

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Lawns for America

Okay, thanks for your reply. The yellow areas were places that didn't green at all last growing season, even when using chemical fertilizers. It just seems like anything and everything I put down, nothing happens. Apparently I need to train my dogs to start peeing all over.

Do you, or anyone else, have any links to what pH, K, P, and N levels are ideal for my area and for my lawn?

Okay, apparently the feed stores down here can only get SBM by the truckload, so they won't order it. They said they can get Cottonseed Meal by the bag. Is there any disadvantages by going with Cottonseed Meal over SBM. I've read that CSM can change your pH levels. Is that the only downside? Also, if you can't use SBM, would CSM be your second choice? Thanks

Mammal urine is not acidic unless the donor is very sick. I'm not sure where that rumor got started. It is normally neutral.

The reasons your dogs pee spots turned green is you already had the sugar on the soil. Quite often the grass will turn dead. SURPRISE! It is amazing what a little organic program can do on a very small scale, though, isn't it.

The fast greening is, as was said, a sign that you need a lot more fertilizer. The sugar tells the microbes living in your soil to multiply. The urine will convert easily to plant food when you have enough of the microbes. Well, since you had sugared the area, you had the microbes ready and waiting for your dogs. Anyone who does not believe in organic lawn care needs to see your lawn.

I fertilize on the federal holidays. Living in the south, as you do, I start on Washington's Birthday and apply again on Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. The application rate I use is 10 pounds per 1,000 square feet of ordinary corn meal. I could go to 20 or 30 pounds but I don't need to. That amount normally keeps my grass dark green all year long. With soybean meal or cottonseed meal, those materials have a lot more protein, you should start at 10 pounds per 1,000 and adjust up or down from there.

My second choice after ordinary corn meal is alfalfa pellets (rabbit food), then corn GLUTEN meal. If I could not find those I would haunt the local Starbucks and get used coffee grounds from them. Coffee grounds are about the same protein content as corn. The reason I line the feeds up in this order is cost. I'm going to apply at 10 pounds per 1,000 no matter which one I use. Applying less than that is kind of hard without a good spreader. So in my neighborhood corn meal is the cheapest followed by alfalfa. After that it gets very expensive for soy and, since coffee grounds are free, I'd do that. I just bought two bags of corn meal for $17.50 ($8.75 each).

Okay, this may seem like a lot of question. I am having a tough time sorting through the little information that there is available. Anyway, I've got my soil tested. pH is right at 7, so there's no problem there. Potash was in the sufficient range. Phosphorous was deficient. Nitrogen was depleted, as you predicted above.

So, I'm going to need lots of Nitrogen to get the grass going again. Just this past week, I threw down some Scotts Organic Choice. I was unable to get anything from my feed store as they would have to order it.

Here is where I need some direction:

Since my Nitrogen is so depleted, how often should I be feeding the lawn?

I realize organic lawn care is a long term solution, but, realistically, how soon can I see results?

Is there any product that you can recommend that can deliver an immediate boost to my Nitrogen and Phosphorous levels?

Thanks for your help.

Nitrogen will pretty much always test as depleted since it doesn't stick around in the soil. Many places don't even bother testing for it. So your schedule shouldn't need to be adjusted for that.

As stated above nitrogen in the soil will be used up pretty quickly which is why many lawns quickly become addicted to the mega nitrogen blasts provided by the chemical lawn care companies. Yes, the organic option is a long term solution but it works as a short term solution too. What did the soil test have to say about the percent of organic matter in your soil? If it is lower than it should be you should focus on getting the microbial activity jump started with a good soil conditioner or a compost tea.

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Lawns for America

This wasn't a professional soil test. Just a kit I picked up. So, I don't have a organic matter %.

However, my lawn responds really well to my dogs' urine. Within a couple days, it's a nice, lush green. So, to my understanding, the "critters" in the soil are just waiting to get fed. I'm going to get some Soybean Meal to get the organic matter up.

I purchased Earths Balance 71017 Formula to help in the short term. It's a 19-2-2 liquid formula, so it should help green it up.

Here's what I've done, and what I plan to do:
Feb. 25 - Milorganite
March 9 - Scotts Organic Choice

Earths Balance later this week.
SBM in a few weeks.

Anything wrong with that? Should I get the SBM down as soon as possible, or wait? So far with the Milorganite and Scotts, I haven't noticed any greening.

You can't overdo it as long as you can afford it. I only apply once in the early spring (Feb 22) and then again on Memorial Day. Is your grass growing enough to need mowing? If so then it should be greening up from the Feb 25 app in about a week.

Organic ferts don't show they're working for 3 weeks. You can't cut that short although I have seen claims that Milorganite works faster - I'm skeptical. But with a 3-week lag in performance, you have to be ready to fertilize 3 weeks before you need it. If you are new, try to remember, or write notes to yourself, for next year. That's how I came to fertilize on the federal holidays. It works for me and works as a beginning guide for anyone else.

Thanks for the info dchall. I haven't had to cut the entire yard, just parts of it. I've got some really nice parts that grew even through winter, although I only had to cut those spots every two to three weeks. I noticed a little bit of greening beginning in the bad areas. I'll keep an eye on those and hopefully they'll come around. I definitely need to get some organic matter down in the soil though. I'm gonna wait a couple weeks on the SBM, but more than likely I'll throw it down if I'm not 100% satisfied with the way the lawn looks.

Organic matter lives in the soil whether you try or not. More will live once you stop using chemicals. It will flourish if you feed with organic fertilizer and and water it. I wrote a reply in another forum that describes it pretty well.

If your entire lawn is not growing enough to mow yet, you are probably too anxious about the greening.

Very nice link there dchall. Very imformative.