Atrazine+St. “A”+heat = question

Ron95gt – posted 02 August 2005 07:53

I have full sun, moved lots of 8″ plugs, and sandy soil that the nutrients run right thru. Never seen anything like it, in all my years of playing with St. “A”. However, this is the first zero shade attempt in a former 5 acre peanut field too.Anyway, I have to fertilize lightly every 4 weeks, just to keep nitrogen in the ground. Pennington sent me a bunch of bags of St. “A” WEED and feed, instead of the “feed” I asked for. My question is: Will the atrazine cause the grass to burn in hot sun(have good irrigation resources), or is it the actual nitrogen fertilizer, that you have to watch out for in the dead of summer? To be blunt, I put the 18 Nitrogen W&F down, at 80% rate of what’s called for, watered heavily, but had several days of 100+ temps, instead of normal 95 degree days. Definately stressed the plugs and patches, I deluged it with water, but may have been set back a few weeks in progress by this. Don’t know whether to blame the Atrazine, the ungodly temps with the atrazine, or the nitrogen and temps. I do have one strip though, that I did not fertilize, and it shows the same brown streaks. So, maybe the sun just burned it up, chemicals or no chemicals? Oh yeah, doesn’t look like chinchs to me, ph is in normal limits, and I cut it at 3.75″. Comments and experiences are appreciated.

wdrake – posted 02 August 2005 08:25

Until you mentioned the strip that didn’t get the weed and feed, I was convinced that the atrazine and temperature got to you. I still think that is the proximate cause. I’ve used a rule of thumb of 75 degrees or less when applying liquid atrazine. I would assume the same or nearly the same temperature would hold for dry chemicals. Anyway that’s my two cents!

Bill DrakeNiceville FL