Is it time to fertilize fescue?

[Douglas]

Our weather here in central NC is predicted to be mid 60's to mid 70's for the next week so it appears spring is here at last. I am itching to spread ammonium nitrate on new fescue I planted late last fall. It has been very cold lately, and I am wondering if I need to wait for it to start growing to apply fertilizer. No rain is in the forecast. What do you think, is it time to roll?

 

[dyates]

Too early. Wait until its' growing good.

 

[dun]

We're further north and we're fertilizing this week. Grass is greening nicely and the clover is going nuts.

 

[Cowdirt]

Our weather here in central NC is predicted to be mid 60's to mid 70's for the next week so it appears spring is here at last. I am itching to spread ammonium nitrate on new fescue I planted late last fall. It has been very cold lately, and I am wondering if I need to wait for it to start growing to apply fertilizer. No rain is in the forecast. What do you think, is it time to roll?

Too early in my neck of the woods and I suspect yours also. Likelihood of too much cold weather remains. Wait until temperature stabilizes warmer. Best also to have rain following the application of the fertilizer. JMO

 

[Angus Cowman]

Around here I know guys that fertilize their fescue in January so I would say it is not to early I usually top dress my hayfields in Mar as Dun said we are applying N here already

 

[dyates]

Make absolutely sure all danger of a killing frost is past. There's no telling how many thousands of dollars of fertilizer went right down the crapper around here last year. Everything greened up and people started fertilizing. A late killing frost came and burnt everything down to the ground. As usual, I was late getting mine on (aka after the frost), but came out smelling like a rose. My yields doubled and tripled most everyone else's.

 

[Douglas]

Make absolutely sure all danger of a killing frost is past. There's no telling how many thousands of dollars of fertilizer went right down the crapper around here last year. Everything greened up and people started fertilizing. A late killing frost came and burnt everything down to the ground. As usual, I was late getting mine on (aka after the frost), but came out smelling like a rose. My yields doubled and tripled most everyone else's.

That would be the middle of April, way to late. I like to cut the hay early May

 

[dyates]

Good luck. The old timers around here say "Ya can't make hay in May." They are usually right. Some years, the third or fourth week if you're lucky. With the humidity and cool nights, it takes a week to cure. It's usually hard to find a dry spell that long in May here.

 

[dun]

There's frost then ther is killing frost. We've had days in the 60s and th fescue is going nuts. Follow that with days in the low 30s (sometimes high 20s) with nights in the teens. As soon as the weather warms up again the grass takes off again. We've never had freeze/frost killed fescue.

 

[dyates]

Yeah. We don't usually see it either. The stuff that wasn't fertilized early didn't get burnt to bad. The stuff that was fertilized early and got all lush and juicy was toasted. It recovered, of course, but all that nitrogen was gone.

 

[Angus Cowman]

2 yrs ago we had a hard freeze in April that burnt everything back,killed the alfalfa
the thing to do if it does get burnt back froma freeze is to go in and mow it down the cutting will stimulate the new growth on fescue and cool season grasses after a freeze

I mowed some and didn't others and what I mowed was twice the stand as what didn't get mowed

I found this out by accident because I was building fence and mowed where the fence was going within 3 days it was as tall as it was before the freeze