What equipment and products do I use?
Here is a pretty comprehensive list of products I use (Lawn Care Minimalist)
TeeJet Tips
Foliar applications: TeeJet DG11003 (my Goldilocks droplet size for foliar!)
Soil applications: TeeJet TTI11004 (make sure the 3rd letter is there… the I stands for induction = larger droplets = minimal foliar contact. The spray angle on the TTI series can't be beat if used with a FlowZone quick change tip holder)
Sprayer: FlowZone Cyclone (Note: Amazon is expensive... Site One often has in stock or elsewhere online... I prefer the lighter, cheaper, more precise Cyclone over the Typhoon).
Fertilizer: 46-0-0 Urea dissolved in water and sprayed (soil application... TTI11004 tip)
Note: shipped urea cost about 3x as much as locally sourced urea.
Tip: Use ChatGPT to help source "50 pound bags of 46-0-0 urea". If you absolutely can't find urea, DEF Super Tech from Walmart or DEF from TSC should still be cheaper than shipped urea.
How I spray urea can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyCxXk78BUo
Solo chest mount spreader - seed, pelletized lime, gypsum (sulfur deficiency only), granular fertilizers (I don't apply granular fertilizers, but Scott's 32-0-4 Lawn Food is my favorite granular due to the low amount of potassium and the nice prill size).
Landzie compost spreader (optional to cover seed with peat moss after rake in on bare dirt seeding… 5-6 cubic feet per 1,000’ is about right to do 50% overlapping passes... I don't do this with overseeding... bare dirt seeding only)
R&R 40” leveling rake for leveling prior to seeding for more ornamental areas.
Mesotrione at seeding… I do all herbicides by weight in grams. The density can be found on the SDS in the Physical Properties section and a $10 microgram scale is worth owning. For seeding cool-season grasses (exception: fine fescue) I normally do 3.5-4.1 grams of 40% mesotrione per 1,000' at seeding. For KBG, follow-up applications may reduce weed pressure since KBG is so painfully slow to establish. THE LABEL IS LAW... ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK THE LABEL.
Lesco Wet Plus - I’ll probably purchase next as an economical wetting agent (in the past I’ve used Vivax). Wetting agents help better distribute soil moisture which can reduce the risk of localized dry spot... they can increase overall turf quality in some cases but they are unlikely to reduce your water bill. Hydretain and other humectants don't really have research supporting the result of reduced watering and Hydretain is not a wetting agent so I do not use hydretain.
SpeedZone EW or Q4 for broadleaf weeds (foliar application… also by weight per volume translation from the SDS... for Speed Zone EW, for cool-season grass about 43 grams per 1,000' is mid-rate or 34 grams per 1,000' for warm season grass). THE LABEL IS LAW... ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK THE LABEL.
The only products I use are urea, lime, seed, mesotrione (at seeding), chlorantraniliprole (Acelepryn or Durentis or you could even use GrubEX), a copolymer wetting agent (only when being lazy w/ water), water, SpeedZone (rare).
Renovations:
Dyne-Amic surfactant + gly for burn down… make sure the old garbage grass is green and fed and watered so the grass will die properly whenever renovating w/ glyphosate. The faster it's growing, the faster it's dying.
After weeks of chemical burn down and waiting I use a 500,000 BTU propane vapor torch to get bare dirt prior to seeding and I even prefer to till up some roots and torch those if I care enough about the area.
I like a square bucket that is clear and graduated (restaurant supply) and I like a 1 gallon plastic paint mixer for mixing things like urea into water… herbicides I typically mix right in the tank as to not get chemicals on my any bucket. I own a pretty nice scale (for weighing grass seed for SEED-BOSS) but a kitchen scale works just fine… I prefer scales that might be used for fertilizer to read in pounds (not pounds and ounces) and I like a microgram scale to be set to read in grams and I use solo cups and 23ML disposable extra long pipettes for low rate chemicals like Acelepryn or Mesotrione.
Rotary Scissors for edging... much cleaner look than a blade edger.
All-American style sharpening jig for sharpening rotary blades and it's good to have at least 2 sets of blades for less grinding set up... dull blades is probably the #1 thing that can be done to have a better lawn.
I make my own back-lapping paste for my reel mower out of Anchor Lube combined with lapping grade 60 grit silicon carbide powder (often used smooth surface rock polishing).
I spray all blades and the bedknife on my reel mower (front lawn is reel mowed) with crown dry graphite lube before each mow… this reduces the blade noise considerably while repelling dirt & debris.
I like powerful battery blowers… the Toro is decent and Kress would be a good one or newer EGO like the 880CFM. For touch up blowing like the sidewalk I often reach for my low power single battery Milwaukee M18 blower… I use that low power blower more than my higher power blower.
I can’t think of any other products I use within the context of lawn care but products I could recommend if you want to go the extra mile are foliar iron and T-Nex, but I don’t personally use them and in my opinion they come with more cons than I want to mess with.
Watering at about 70-80% reference evapotranspiration is nice for rye and an interval of about 3 days during drought should work for most people. Weekly FRET can be found HERE and if you zoom in on the map and click "create a bookmarkable URL" below the map on the left you can create a refreshable line specific to your area.
1) Get irrigation rate of your sprinklers
2) Pull current evapotranspiration (click on the map and wait a few seconds to generate a number to use)
3) To water based on 75% of ET every 3 days the math would look like this:
(Weekly FRET x .75 x 3/7) minus precipitation = Supplemental water needed every 3 days based on a crop co-efficient of x.75
Note: Early AM watering is efficient and can minimize disease pressure.
My rotary mower is currently a Honda but I plan to replace that with a lighter mower with no cord to pull so my fairly young son can start mowing my back lawn with a more maneuverable mower… I already have a 12AH EGO battery so EGO probably makes sense but I'd also consider 60V Kress.
My reel mower is an Allett Stirling but the thing has given tons of issues so I can’t recommend it at this time and I don’t love the company in terms of customer service and parts support. So I can't offer a very good recommendation for a reel mower... maybe a Revolution.
Sharp blades. Regular nitrogen. 1/3 rule. Water during drought... don't overwater and try not to let the ground get too dry to the touch. Not rocket science. Good seed genetics are like dealing yourself a better hand, but you still need to play the hand!