Buying Fertilizer at Bulk

[prestige66]

I'm going to be starting a Lawn Care Business - this coming spring in the Midwest USA.
Looking to do a six step granular fertilizer program. April, May, June (skipping July) August, September & October.
Looking to do a Pre-Emergent for the April step and ending in October with a Winterizing step.
Looking for - who to buy from - to what would the pros recommend and what is the going rate I should expect to treat - per 1,000 sq feet. Most of my lawns will be in the 5,000-7,500 sq. feet range.

[Phil Nilsson]

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Check to see if there is a "Lesco" in your area, visit with them, layout your plan, they'll help you with the program, what to buy, when, and give you the cost numbers if you buy in bulk.

[qualitylandscaping]

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prestige66,

go to www.lesco.com, if you didn't already... They offer really good bulk rates and will deliver pallets of bulk products to you..

[qualitylandscaping]

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sorry the site is www.lesco.com

[mariner]

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Fertilize at the rate of .75 lbs of nitro per 1000 sq/ft That'll give a about 4 lbs per growing season. To figure out how much of the bag you need to put on the property take the percentage(.75 lbs per 1000)) and divide that by the percentage of nitro on the bag. For example, if you want to put down .75 lbs of nitro on a 5000 sq/ft property and your nitro percentage is say 30% .75/.30=2.5. So 2.5lbs of that bag per 1000 sq/ft would be 12.5 lbs of that bag for the whole lawn. Hope that helps.

[rkbrown]

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Mr. Mariner is right on the money. I am not that familiar with the cool season grasses, but I know that here on the Gulf Coast, we want only about 4 lb of nitrogen per year. Any more than that and our St. Augustine lawns become suseptable to all sorts of maladies.

[Lawngodfather]

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Where are you in the Midwest?

You will want to apply less fert in the Spring/Summer and hit it good in the fall. I always set all my stuff up with the fert application about 6 months before.

Also see if you can find a BWI companies, or you local co-op or grain elevator.

Also don't forget the licensing, you gotta have that to apply pesticides and herbicides and ROUND UP.

Please don't waste you time with a fert only and no pest control program, that is offering 20% of what this part of the biz acutally is.