Lawn Fertilizer – Organic or Synthetic

What is an organic fertilizer?
Organic fertilizers are products which used to be "alive" (as plant or animals), or their waste products. Examples: horse manure and grass clippings are recycled and the essential (chemical) elements are released as fertilizer.

Typically, manures, dried blood, and fruit scraps are good sources of nitrogen and phosphorus. Plant tissues are made from cellulose but also contain fertilizer nutrients, such as nitrogen and magnesium, which will be released by the decomposing bacteria. Generally, green materials contain a lot more fertilizer whereas the brown materials have more cellulose and less fertilizer by volume.

The true biological definition of "organic" is compounds which contain the (chemical) element carbon (C). However, in gardening this definition is used differently.

Organic gardening is the growing of plants without the use of synthetic (man made) fertilizers, pesticides, and insecticides. One exception is mined fertilizer minerals. Natural deposits of rock phosphates, potash, and borate are allowed, even though these products were "never alive".

Organic fertilizers, unlike salts, will not dissolve in water directly. They consist of large, complex moleculess which must first be broken down by microbes. Organic nitrogen, for example, is available in proteins of animals and plants. It is converted from organic nitrogen into ammonium(NH4+) and then into nitrate(NO3-) by microbes. In one of these two forms, water can make the molecules available to the plants in the same manner as synthetic fertilizers.

Contrary to common belief, compost is not a good source of fertilizer for an actively growing lawn. Recycling grass clippings is a much better way to organically feed the lawn.

Justifications for choice of fertilizers
For the grass plants there is no distinction: a fertilizer molecule is a fertilizer molecule whether it was synthesized in a factory or was dumped from the back side of a horse.

Gardeners are the ones making the distinctions. Some prefer synthetic fertilizers while others prefer organics. These choices usually fall into 3 categories:

• Plant oriented
  • Some plants benefit from organic fertilizers because timing and release speed matches growing conditions. Warm season grasses are one example. Other plants do better if fertilized with synthetic fertilizers. For example, late season fertilization of cool season grasses when soil temperatures are cool.
• Cost, Availability, and Packaging
  • Synthetic fertilizers are usually concentrated, cheaper, and pre-packaged for easy transport, except when gardeners have access to free manure or compost. Because organic products generally contain lower percentages of nutrients, applications requires more work and volume. A 25 lbs bag of Lawn
    The copyright of the article Lawn Fertilizer – Organic or Synthetic in Home Lawncare is owned by Kenneth Joergensen. Permission to republish Lawn Fertilizer – Organic or Synthetic in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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