The Grass Doctor

Why is my lawn turning brownish after fertilizing?

I put down Scotts fertilizer with weed control, step 2, last thursday. Now, some parts of the grass are browning. I didn't go over the same spots more than once, but I have a feeling that my spreader disperser's more fertilizer than necessary when I hold down the "throttle" to open up the pit on the bottom of the spreader. Can this be true? Is the browning grass going to be totally dead soon? Is there anything I can do so my lawn doesn't brown any more, any ideas, suggestions, comments? Please respond.

Public Comments

1. Did you water the lawn after applying the fertilizer? Fertilizer needs to be watered in after applying, otherwise the lawn will burn. I would water the lawn heavily to ensure that the fertilizer dilutes out into the soil.
2. Weed and feed fertilizer actually needs to sit on the lawn without watering overnight to work properly, then be watered in. Reasons your lawn may have burned: 1)Your spreader is defective and applying too heavily. or 2)You set the setting too high 2) It was too hot when you applied it. Weed and Feed should not be applied when the temps are going to be over 85 degrees. All you can do is water really deeply, stay away from fertilizer/weed killer for a while and wait and see if it recovers. It probably will!
3. Put lots of water on your lawn to delete the fertilizer. Are you sure its not the weeds turning brown?
4. Dry fertilizer will draw water out of plant matter, as its nutrients are more concentrated than what is inside of the leaves. This is the process called osmosis, that you may have covered in chemistry at school. Once water dilutes the fertiliser enough it will stop having this effect, though already scorched leaves will not be able to reabsorb water, if they are fully dried out. It's unlikely to have killed the grass plants, merely damaging or killing some of the leaves, so should regrow. Its weed killing element should only target any plant that is broad-leaved, and not a grass type plant, so I'm assuming that you've just got some leaf burn from the fertiliser. I would water thoroughly if possible, as this will help dilute what you have spread, as well as rehydrate the grass plants, if the soil is also dry. Hope this helps. Good luck! Rob