Last Updated on August 29, 2023 by ILGM Ninjas
We all like to know where we stand in life. We believe in this too. In the past when we were operating in the synthetic system we would judge success by how green the lawn was, regardless of the issues we were having. We never looked at the soil and ran tests to see where the lawn was doing in regards to pH, carbon content, CEC, etc. As a matter of fact how we operated was at best was a bit irresponsible. Oh we didn’t know it at the time because we were doing what everyone else was doing, throwing down a lot of nitrogen and watering a lot and hoping for the best. There was no provision for being proactive other than watering and aerating in March (if you ever see someone aerating earlier than May or when the irrigation system is on know that it is being done solely for cashflow as you cannot drive a steel tine into dry earth and have good results. This is no longer necessary in the biological system but just a little lawn trivia). Know we know that when someone approaches us about their infestation of weeds as that is the most important thing what we are hearing is, ” Hey Doc, I have Cancer, what health foods do I need to be eating.” Now we can be not just proactive but we can be precise. We can now show the customer what their soil looks like and where we need to put our focus rather than guessing. We can predict how efficient and effective their watering will be by how much carbon is in their soil. We can predict how effective the nutrient uptake will be in the lawn by what the pH is (should be as close as possible to 6.5). We can tell them how much biology, if any is in their lawn and how quickly their soil will take to recover from the salt damage from synthetics. That soil test is pretty cool. It measures the Carbon Dioxide that is given off from the microbes in the soil. We can now objectively measure and inform the customer how well their lawn is doing and control future stress and damage by not addressing the issues that are currently in the soil. I liken this to someone having their first blood panel at the age of 45. Most people have no idea what is going on in their soil. This gives the customer a powerful tool in knowing where they stand and now we can give people that infamous progress bar that lets them know where they stand when it comes to their lawn.