Corn Meal and Chemicals

[Sheila]

Hello, I am from Virginia, but this is the best site I could find for feedback. I have a question about the effectiveness of using cornmeal as a fertilizer and fungus controller if I have just put down a bag of crabgass controller and grub controller. I just found out now that cornmeal is very good at this. Looking at some of the posts, it looks like i should have just aerated my soil, dropped some cornmeal down, let the leaves drop and lay for 2 week, cover all the leaves with ironate. And then sweeped so the worms would get distributed. Can anyone tell me how long it will take a lawn to recover from a Chemical Treatment? i.e, fertlizer, crabgrass control, grub control and lime. Also, one post states that when toxic chemicals are used the effect of the cornmeal will be lost. How long will it take for the chemicals to break down, so I can then apply an effective coat of cornmeal?

Thanks,, Sheila from Virginia

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

Hi Sheila, and welcome to the Dirt Doctor forums!

I'm not sure which post you read, but generally the corn meal is only affected by other fungicides. It will still work as a fertilizer, but will not give you the anti-fungal effect if chemical fungicides preceded the corn meal. The materials you used should have no effect on corn meal.

Ironate? Do you mean Ironite? If you need iron in your soil, the best thing I've found is called greensand. The ingredient is glauconite. You should be able to find it on the East Coast. Ironite has other issues, besides the fast that it doesn't always work.

You didn't really say what your lawn problems were, but as the leaves fall, I would not let them sit on top. I would mulch them in on a weekly basis.

[ghochs]

Here is a further explanation of why you should not use ironite.

http://www.dirtdoctor.com/view_question.php?id=120&set_theme=1

[Sheila]

From what I have been told, Ironate is Copperas in a newer form with nitrogen added. The company calls its Ironate. It did say that Ironite which is a different distrubutor had arsenic in it. Supposedly Ironate does not. But I'm going to try to make my own iron chelate with my leaf droppings. I'm going to rake all my leaves, mulch them with a mulcher , then add this Copperas. Evidently for iron to be easily absorbed into the soil it needs to bind to an organic molecule. Otherwise it becomes bonded to lime and will not get absorbed by the plant roots. But the recipe is 1 cup of iron sulfate to each bushel of mulch. If i can find the Green Sand in Virginia.... I will buy that.

[dcluck]

I ran across this Q&A from Howard here on the web site concerning Copperas.

Quote: Q: Someone gave me Hi-Yield Copperas, is it a good or bad product? thanks, E.A.

A: I do not recommend iron products that are a rusty brown color. Those are usually made from scrap metal or other industrial wastes and contain contaminants like heavy metals. The best iron supplements are Texas greensand and seaweed products that contain liquid iron. These products are buffered to work gently effectively and not stain as the ferrous sulfate materials do.

~Dave