Science is all around us and when we use it, we can better understand how plants grow and how we can provide them with their optimal growing conditions. In this blog, we delve into soil pH, soil health, nutrients that your lawn needs and the important role of photosynthesis and how they all affect plant health and growth.
What Should My Soil pH Be?
If your lawn is not performing at its best, or is struggling to absorb nutrients, you may need to do a soil pH test. pH measures the acidity on a scale ranging from 0 – 14, 7 being neutral, below 7 acidic and above 7 alkaline. The ideal pH range for turf is 6 – 7.5. When your soil is outside this range it can make it either difficult or almost impossible to absorb nutrients.
The process of measuring your soils pH might be easier than you think. Some pH tests are as easy as putting a probe into the soil and others require you to collect a sample of soil and mix it with a solution to give a reading. Soil pH test kits are readily available to nurseries and hardware stores, or can be purchased on our online Lawn Care Store.
If your soil pH is out of range, please check out our blog on how to correct your soils pH here for more information.
Why is Soil Health Important for My Lawn?
In combination to looking at pH, there are a range of other factors to consider when looking at the health of your soil. The soils’ ability to hold water is one. If your soil has become hydrophobic and repels water, the roots of the plant in the soil won’t be able to absorb water effectively. One way to tell that your soil is hydrophobic is if water runs off or pools on the surface, without being absorbed into the ground. If your soil has become hydrophobic, apply a wetting agent like our Lawn Soaker and aerate the soil.
Another factor to investigate when examining soil health is compaction. When soil is hard and compacted, it can make it difficult for water, air, and nutrients to go within the profile. To help assist with this, you can aerate the soil to help alleviate compaction.
Importance of Sunlight to Your Lawn
Like other plants, grass will convert energy from sunlight into a sugar called glucose through the process of photosynthesis. Without getting sunlight your lawn won’t be able to produce glucose, causing the grass to thin out and die. Grass also uses light to produce a pigment called Chlorophyll and when there is less light available to the grass throughout the cooler months, this can cause the lawn to lose some colour.
Different turf types can survive with different amounts of light. Buffalo grasses like Sir Walter DNA Certified Buffalo can grow with as little as 3 to 4 hours of direct sunlight. While other grasses like kikuyu require full sunlight all day to thrive.
What Nutrients Does My Lawn Need?
When looking at nutrients and your lawn, you can break it down into two different sections, Macronutrients and Micronutrients. Macronutrients are the primary nutrients for the health of your lawn. These are Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K). Micro nutrients are needed in smaller quantities, but still help contribute to a healthy lawn. These include Calcium, Iron, Manganese, and Zinc just to name a few.
When it comes to giving your lawn nutrients that it needs to thrive, we recommend using a balanced NPK and Micronutrient fertiliser, like our Lawn Solutions Premium Fertiliser, or our Exceed Liquid Fertiliser. Granular fertilisers will generally release nutrients to the lawn over a slower period, resulting in a longer and more sustained boost over a couple of weeks. Liquid fertilisers are better used for providing your lawn with a quick boost.
For more lawn care tips and advice, make sure you check out our other lawn care blogs here.
