Landscape Management, February 2019

HOW T O SOLUTIONS WORK Enhanced efficiency fertilizers BY ABBY HART LM SENIOR EDITOR E nhanced efficiency fertilizers EEFs are another potential tool in your lawn care arsenal Eric Miltner Ph D agronomist for Koch Turf and Ornamental says With EEFs lawn care operators LCOs dont have to apply fertilizer every six weeks but if they still want to make property visits every six weeks they can use their time to complete other lawn care tasks other than applying fertilizer such as spot spraying for weeds Lets take a look at how these fertilizers work and help differentiate between the available types What is your big environmental concern How long do you want the product to last LANDSCAPEMANAGEMENT NET FEBRUARY 2019 28 PHOTO KOCH TURF AND ORNAMENTAL FERTILIZER PRILLS Turf Ornamental HOW THEY WORK EEFs are products that allow increased plant uptake and reduce the potential of nutrient losses to the environment via gaseous losses leaching or runoff Bob Hartman director of sales and marketing for Knox Fertilizers says regarding nitrogen there are several types of EEFs including urease and nitrification inhibitors products that can coat a urea prill or be homogenously distributed throughout sulfur and polymer coated nitrogen coated urea prills and slowrelease nitrogen fertilizers such as methylene urea composts biosolids manures and litters PRODUCT USE DOs Miltner suggests that LCOs consider how long they would like their fertilizer to last and that they examine the soil and environmental conditions and understand what is in their bag of fertilizer With the higher cost of EEFs Hartman recommends technicians calibrate their spreaders correctly so they do not over or underapply product PRODUCT USE DONTs Dont keep the same spreader calibration settings from product to product Miltner cautions Every product flows differently through the spreader even though they may have the same percentages of nutrients Lastly Miltner says that EEFs are beneficial even if you dont use them for the long coverage benefits If youre making frequent applications every six weeks you dont necessarily need a longlasting product he says but its still important to use enhanced efficiency fertilizers because they get more nitrogen into the plant Sandy soils Heavy rainfall Nitrogen leaching Shorter than a full season All season High pH soils Stabilized nitrogen fertilizer keeps nitrogen in a form so the plant can retain more of it Usually urea amended with a urease inhibitor which reduces ammonia volatilization or urea with a nitrification inhibitor which slows down the conversion of ammonium to nitrate in the soil These fertilizers are uncoated and can therefore be spread or sprayed Controlled release fertilizer provides the most control over nutrient release These are polymer coated fertilizers which have a thick polymer coating allowing the fertilizer to break down very slowly and last a long time Slow release fertilizer releases nutrients slower than a quick release fertilizer These include methylene ureas and natural organics which rely on microbes in the soil to break down fertilizer and release nutrients to the plant and sulfur coated urea which uses a sulfur coating to slow down the solubility of nitrogen Bob Hartman