Here's another little tid-bit regarding this same article. This is from my favorite soil scientist. Those that know her will recognizer her writing style. She's got a unique way of putting things (yes, there may be a little crush going on here):

The way I look at molasses is that it is a great bacterial food resource.

Add molasses to anything, at the right concentration, and bacteria bloom!

Quite a bit of what Malclom Beck talks about in the post linked below (that Louis sent in, thank you for that!) is the necessity of having the right sets of microbes in the compost or soil in order to get the benefit you want from growing a whole bunch of bacteria.

Malcolm makes sure that there is a good inoculum or addition, of Nitrogen-fixing bacteria present. Most of the time, by managing the composting right, those bacteria are present in the compost.

Where did those bacteria come from? They were on the organic matter originally put into the pile.
But you can hedge your bets and add the particular sets of microbes to make sure you have them.

The bacterial species to get are:

1. Any FREE-LIVING Nitrogen-fixing bacteria, such as Azotobacter, Azospirillum, Frankia, Azomonas

2. "Bad-guy" fungi suppressors, such as Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus megaterium, B. flourescens,

3. If concerned about pesticide residues in your soil or compost, then buy a mix also containing Pseudomonas laterosporalis, P. licheniformis, or other some fungal species know to do a good job breaking down pesticides. Sorry, can't remember the names of the fungi.

When you buy an inoculum, check to make sure it actually has the bacteria in it you want.

If you learn to use a microscope, or have a local friend who can use one, you can check easily to make sure there area at least bacteria in the mix. Bacillus species are distinctive, so you can check for them just by appearance - big fat rod shapes.....some short, some longer, some really long, single, or chained.
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Folks have spoken a bit about EM on this list serve, and if you have severely compacted soils, areas of your lawn that puddle and do not drain properly, then making a little bit of your compost with an EM addition might be a good idea.

EM is a particular mix of a number of bacterial species. Sorry, no fungi in this mix that survive in soil (or, let's hope they don't survive in your soil, the yeasts that are normally in EM aren't beneficial in soil). EM is prepared in a way that means the species you buy will be low-oxygen environment organisms. They work in compacted or low-oxygen environments WITHOUT making alcohol (which is the danger when your compost goes anaerobic). These species don't volatilize ammonia, rotten egg smells, or make phosphine gas. So, you don't lose your important nutrients if the compost or soil goes anaerobic and these guys win out against the more "rotten" bacterial species.

So, if you have soil, or compost that is stinky or smelly, or have areas of puddling in your lawn, make a compost where you have added these organisms, can put a light dusting of this compost on that area and water it in. Or make a tea from that compost, and drench the area.

But REMEMBER, in two weeks to come back with an inoculum of AEROBIC organisms, such as a compost with no addition of EM, or a compost tea made from a normal aerobic compost.

The species that should be in EM are:

1. Lactobacillus Long slender rods, may be single, two in a chain, or multiple in chains. But always slender rods (to differentiate from Bacillus species)

2. Pseudomonas species - but mostly the low-oxygen environment ones. They do have ability to chew up pesticides, so possible a good place to get a good mix of these species.

3. Actinobacteria - a herd of species. These bacteria grow in filaments, so they look like very slender threads. They look alot like fungi, but are too thin to be real fungal strands. So, when you see "pencil-lines" in your microscope, those are actinobacteria. In all my experience, having high amounts of actinobacteria in a productive pasture or row crop / broadacre soil is an indicator of bad things. These bacteria do not help the crop species most of us grow. They do help brassica though, and riparian and wetland plants. So........ are these good bacteria? Depends on what you want to grow.

4. Non-sulfur, purple photosynthetic cyanobacteria. Very distinctive purple to violet color in the cells of this organism. Doesn't typically survive transportation in the mail, doesn't survive in bottles stored in the dark. It is a photosynthetic organism after all, and despite the fact some EM salesmen say it doesn't need sunlight to survive, all the data we have from looking at the product shows no survival of this organism once the product gets to us through the mail.

5. Yeasts...... these are fungi that grow in low oxygen conditions. They look like big round to oblong balloons that some times grow in clumps, and look rather like little cactus clumps. Not good to be seeing alot of these in soil. Definite indicators of compaction and lack of oxygen. Yeasts aren't good at building structure or helping make things better in soil, at least that I have ever seen. An EM without lots of yeasts would be better than one that has lots.

Hope this helps clarify why molasses can do good things in soil.

Okay, it's me again. I wanted to point out that when she talks about adding compost to your soil, she doesn't mean the usually recomended rate of 1/3" or a cubic yard per 1000 sq.ft. She means a light dusting of the best compost you can make. What's more is that when you have a soil chemistry test performed, and that test makes recomendations based on Ca:Mg ratios and available NPK, you can achieve the same results using 1/600th the recomended rate by applying those elements to GOOD compost and using that to amend your soil. The reason being that the nutrients are held in suspension by the microbes in the compost. Someone start a new thread if you want to discuss this more.

Are you guys keeping up with me here? Info overload or what? Heh, heh...keep it comin'. If you guys like these types of discussions and want to dig a little deeper email me and we can talk.

We're havin' fun now!

Greenjeans

My head is hurting, lol.

I have some worm compost that is almost ready. What do you think I should do with it? I also have a ton of leaf compost that I just dusted across the property. Was that a good idea?

Let that be a lesson to anyone else who hasn't read it yet: Take aspirin first! LOL

Where did you get the leaf compost? Was it good stuff? Did it smell good? Was it aerobic? Was it dark and crumbly? If yes, then it was probably a good thing. Now if you make a compost tea application they'll quickly inhabit all that good compost you just put down.

Regarding the vermicompost and what to do with it; well I guess that depends on how much you have and who needs it. The leaf compost you put down was probably (I say probably because I don't know for sure without test results) fungal dominant. The vermicompost is bacterial dominant and would add good diversity.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Your soil may or may not need any additional organic matter. Your grass plant may prefer fungal dominance over bacterial or vice-versa. Your chemistry may be off. Maybe your Ca:Mg ratio is too small.

Too many "maybe's" in case we weren't catching on. How are your plants responding to your amendments? Is the response consistent or sporadic? How do your plants respond to stress? What is your plant telling you about your soil? What kind of weeds proliferate your soil? Are they broadleaf or grassy?

These are all soil indicators. We can use them to tell us how best to use our reserves. Sometimes there's so much information coming in it's hard to determine what does and doesn't need to be done. That leaves us with one option: Testing.

We need to know the chemistry of our soil. Once that's balanced and we think we've got good biology it's time to invest in biological assay's. We may or may not be going in the right direction with our foods. Maybe our predation is low or there are signs of over-predation. Only a biological test will tell us what we have in our soil and if all's well and heading in the right direction. Why wait for the plant to suffer before we decide to fix what's wrong? Consider the cost of seed and the labor involved and it makes a $200 test a little more attractive.

I realize that's a chunk of change. Honestly, I haven't done it yet either, but I do plan to. I'm still working on my chemistry which testing can be had for less the $50 through Texas Soil and Plant Lab.

I'd save the vermicompost and stockpile it. Maybe use it in a thermal pile with lawn waste and when you get results from a chemistry sample let's look at what nutrients they recomend. You can then use that compost to tie up and fix those nutrients saving you hundreds of dollars compared to applying them directly to the soil.

That's what I think anyway. The wife's buggin' me to go to a birthday party so I'm off. Let us know what you decide to do or if any indicators suggest a previous course of action before testing should be considered. I'm always a firm believer that action should be made regarding repair to what you KNOW prior to testing. Then if there's anything further or things need to be tweaked the test will tell you. It makes for a little more inexpensive way of managing the soil. Otherwise you could get a test, follow recomendations, get another test to see if it worked, and follow further recomendations, etc...too much in my book. But now I'm just blathering.

Greenjeans

Greenjeans.....Here is my story in a nutshell (ok, it will probably be long!)...I moved into the house (New Jersey) 11 months ago. Two months before that, the lawn looked great. By the time I moved in, there were brown patches of dead grass all over. I assumed it was grubs because I found some in one of areas, plus the dead grass was pretty easy to pull up. I overseeded, which filled most of the patches, with just a few rough areas here and there.

Fast forward to this year. I started the spring by overseeding again in the hopes of filling in the remaining bare spots. It worked ok, but still not 100%. My lawn is a mix of rye/fescue/bluegrass. After that initial spreading of Scotts starter fertilizer, I have tried to go organic, putting down applications of soy bean meal and corn meal gluten. To tell you the truth, I probably overdid it, as every time I read about something here, I would try it. For example, after reading about Starbucks giving out coffee grinds, I went out and spread some on my lawn about 1 hour later in the hopes of improving microbial activity. So, since April 1, I have probably put down too much stuff (my soil test suggested that my levels of N/P/K were above recommended)...The good news was that the lawn was super green and received a lot of compliments from neighbors. The small bare spots were not very noticeable from the street due to the fact that I was mowing high. So, I was happy...until....

But then I started noticing some weird things. First, I noticed some grey slime mold. Then two giant mushrooms (which were also there when I moved in last year). Then an area in that same part of the lawn browned out. I later found out from a neighbor that the same section has browned out every year. However, at this point in late July, most of the rest of the lawn was still looking good. About 15 days ago, my father came over to visit and decided to "help out" by mowing the lawn. He mowed it on the lawnmower's lowest setting. Within days, the lawn looked pretty burnt - not completely, but it seemed like every other blade was brown, thus giving it a somewhat brown tinge over the whole lawn. Other small patches went completely brown over the next week, even though I was giving it a lot of water. I started to wonder if two years of getting brown patches was NOT grubs, but instead something fungus related, particularly since I was getting slime mold and mushrooms. Or was this year's problem just from my dad cutting so low? I wasn't sure, but I concluded it was probably both.

The problem areas were accentuated, so I decided to overseed this week.

Here is what I did:
1) First I dethatched. Considering I had dethatched last fall and core aerated in the spring, I figured that the thatch layer would be small. Wrong. There was a TON of thatch. I couldn't believe it. I chalked that up to overfertilization and perhaps not enough microbial activity.

2) Then I slit seeded.

3) I topdressed with leaf compost (from my town...not the best quality, but I screened it) and peat moss.

4) I spread some Milorganite.

So, almost a year into this new lawn, I can say that I have had some great months and some not so great months. At the same time, I am seeing a pattern of late summer die-off. My goal is to go as close to organic as possible and create an atmosphere where the lawn has everything it needs to grow. I am really intrigued by the idea of using compost, and any help you can offer would be appreciated.

Hmmm...same spot, browns out every year. Same time of year? Reminds me of a funny story:

My parents owned a house (they've moved since) for four years and they had one spot on their organically maintained lawn that would ALWAYS turn crispy brown. Same time of year, same spot, and the funniest thing was it was an almost perfect rectangle.

I wracked my brain trying to figure out what the heck was going on: I probed the soil, no compaction or subsurface obstruction. I applied concentrated ACT; no change. I applied seaweed, fish and humic acid; no change. I just couldn't figure out WHY this one spot in the midst of the green would always die without intensive watering.

Well, they went on vacation for two weeks and I mowed for them while they were gone (because that's the good son I am) and one day while mowing I paused at the brown section and was digging around in the dead grass thinking a colony of insects must be living under there and built a subdivision of homes. I felt an intense heat on the back of my head (I'd just gotten a haircut and the went with a #1 shave for the first time). I looked up and saw a reflection coming off the neighbors Southern exposure window.

The sun hit that window at the perfect angle at one time of the year and reflected in such a way that it was almost the equivalent of holding a magnifying glass on the turf. I had to laugh at myself and chalked it up to a learning experience.

Point being, if you're getting brown spots in the same area over and over and they've always been there it can be anything. The first thing I always check for, and are usually the likely suspect, is boulders or stone beneath the surface. If that's not it pay close attention to your micro-climates, what time of year it is, how much irrigation the area receives; all factors.

The mushrooms are indicators of decaying woody material. Not a bad thing and nothing to be concerned. It means fungi are alive and thriving. The mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungal hyphae thriving in your soil. It's an idicator of good organic matter and a good environment for the fungi. The slime mold is caused by overly moist environments and can return year after year, but the best recomended action is to do nothing at all. Let nature take it's course and the mold should disappear when things dry out a bit. You could try to pinpoint what environmental factors contribute to it's growth and give it a healthy dose of bacterial dominant ACT prior to those conditions becoming prevalent, but I don't know that it will work. The slime mold isn't causing harm to the turf and won't kill it. Maybe just put out some "Caution: Slime Mold" signs so nobody slips? LOL

Incidentally, you only have a grub problem when you remove a 12x12" section of sod and see more than 10 grubs in that area. Less than that and any damage they do is negligeable unless your turf is stressed or weak.

Yes, a sudden "low mow" will cause increased stress especially during hot weather. It will recover but try not to allow that to happen again. When the lawn is stressed from having too much chopped at once it opens up the door for disease and pest. In that case, even a small population of grub damage may be evident. Don't worry too much but try to coax the turf back to health with plenty of water and TLC.

The only thing that can come of adding too many organic amendments is really green turf and LOTS of mowing. Unless the amendment blocks the sun so just try not to over apply. Take it easy and don't try too hard. You've got the compost, you're mowing tall and watering deep. You're mulching. Give it food when it's hungry and water when it's thirsty. Try not to expect too much from it unless things look like they're going to evolve into mass death. Organic lawncare is more about acceptance and allowing nature to do it's thing with a little guiding hand once in awhile. Like has been mentioned before try to resist the urge to keep putting things on the lawn.

When you say "die-off" do you mean the turf is dead or the turf is dormant? Just want to clarify. Dormant turf will turn green again with sufficient watering. Try treating dead-zones with extra water amended with seaweed extract before it dies (if it's the same spot). Let us know how that works out for you. Don't forget to check for sub-terrain boulders and gravel too.

To make the most of your compost, get a soil test by Texas Soil and Plant Labs. The results will tell us the best plan we can make for the compost.

Greenjeans

Thanks for your insight! I have already printed it and marked it up so I know what to do over the next few weeks.

I loved your window story. I think that my problem is some sort of fungus. But I am going to be patient. I am new at the organic thing, and I am hoping that I can bring it back to health by some good organic practices.

i enjoyed the window story as well. i was gonna guess it was a slab of concrete under there that was causing a problem.

I have a perfect rectangle of grass that turns brown over my septic tank. I guess the water quickly drains out of the soil into the septic tank.

ah greenjeans...the ever powerful power of observation...imagine that eh, reflected sunlight. :)

i had a spot about a foot around...always the first part of the green to brown out...there was a flat rock buried 6" below the surface and it made for a weak rootzone in that area. took me a while to figure it out, but it all came down to that precious tool...observation. :)
the same principle applies to the septic tank...no place for the grass roots to grow and find water. the water(or 99% of it) doesnt drain into the tank, it flows around it.

mr greenjeans, hows your bent doing?

Mr greengeans gave up on bentgrass! LOL!