How to Increase Potassium 'K' Levels in your Lawn 

I love watching your channel as you dint have a magazine lawn and with your tips and help we can actually see the results that it produces. it's so hard to follow some of the other guys cause they are like oh look do this and it will work... I do it and it doesn't help.

Thank you for explaining the process in an understandable way.

Very informative. Thanks for this.

I just did another soil sample and my K barely moved with 6 pounds down this year. But my sulfur went way up. Good work my friend. Looking forward to your spring wake up.

Thank you for th Purdue article! That info has been hard to find for me.

Yup I’m low on K too! I’m spoon feeding 15-0-15 this fall maybe with an application of 0-0-31 greenphite too

In the exact same boat. I'm at 11 ppm. Should of started this when I overseeded 3 weeks ago but I'm a newbie so... Seems like my backyard is still struggling due to a combination of low K and low pH. Interested to see your soil test in the spring to see how much it came up. 🤙🏻

How did ur lawn turn out? It’s nearly impossible to zone in on a single component. My extension agent said under no circumstances throw high amounts of potassium down because high levels of potassium interferes with both absorption of calcium and magnesium. Rather than do what u did I used liquid kelp to improve potassium. It definitely helped green the lawn and I’m taking another soul test next spring What u did appears to be a very risky approach based on the advice of a soil scientist.

Since the coal powered paper mills in our area closed we have had a sulphur deficiency in our lawns. The last soil test showed a significant deficiency of Sulfur and a slight deficiency of potassium. I called our local farm fertilizer supplier and asked what they had available. They recommend KTS- that's a liquid with 25% potassium,17% Sulfur. It normally sold in bulk directly to farmers, but he got me a 2 1/2 gallon jug for me at $9 per gallon, he also included the proper documentation concerning the product. I added it last week to my spring lawn tonic application. Ill know later how it worked. I used the middle rate recommended on the literature.

Thanks for a great video

Great video Kyle. I've been doing a similar regiment with a 0-0-50.

Another solid video sir… 👍

Curious if it is safe to apply after a seeding renovation?? Great video!!

Have you tested the soil to see how much the potassium increased?

Could be wrong but the yard mastery soil test ppm cannot be compared to the Purdue article ppm you linked in the description. They are using different tests.

I bought that myself and when they say slow release they mean it. During my soil test a month laterI found prills even after the 4 inches of rain we got 2 weeks after the app. Not sure what happened.

Thumbs up just for the singing...oh and the content too :)

Just bought x2 50# bags of 0-0-60 at local ag store. Gonna apply at #4 setting with Scotts edgeguard June 1st as a stress guard for summer. Should i apply sooner so can be getting in soil with rain?

My soil test results were depressing. I need to add 57lbs of Phosphorus and 21lbs of Potassium per acre, on my 2.5 acre property.

My last test in august showed mine at 60 ppm which is low. Do you know what range it should be in?

SOP over MOP any day! Do you know how much chlorine is in the 7-0-20 MOP? 16% chlorine and salt index of 2.19 that's not ideal for soil biology.. SOP 0-0-50 can be found at your local farm supply for $25-30 for 50lbs

48 percent

Did this have much of a drying effect on the grass ?

I want to start of by saying that this isn't intended to be hate, or mocking, or anything derogatory. Take this information, and do with it what you will. I can sincerely appreciate what you are trying to do here, and overall message you are trying to send, but you reasoning behind it is pretty severely misguided at times. 1. You can not compare, correlate, etc. the results you received from your YM test to those provided in the Purdue article you cite. There is no direct correlation between the My Soil resin extraction results and their provided optimal ranges, and the data given in Table 2 of your article. Without knowing for sure, in all likelihood, the numbers from the Purdue article are for a Mehlic 3 extraction method, and though yes, low is low (generally), you can't equate your PPM results from the YM test to those in the Purdue article. What you could have done (which I don't necessarily recommend, (we'll get to that more in a minute) is to use the "optimal" ranges from your YM test and calculate your deficiency purely based on your resultant PPM and some "target PPM" within the optimal range. Example: I believe your test results resulted in around 14ppm of elemental K with the low end of the optimal range being 38ppm. So, that is a deficiency of 24ppm. To convert that 24ppm to something we can understand in terms of "pounds on the ground", we need to first multiply it by 2 to go from ppm to lb/A, then divide it by 43.56 to go from lb/A to lb/1000. So, 24ppm is about 1.1lb/1000 of K that you are deficient. To convert that to lb of K2O (what your fertilizer analysis is based on), you need to multiply the 1.1 by 1.2. That means that you need to apply (theoretically), about 1.3lb/1000 of K2O (via some product) to get you to the low end of the optimal range. If you "theoretically" applied that 1.3lb/1000 of K2O, and followed up with a soil test shortly thereafter, your potassium levels should be around 38ppm. However, that is not to say that if you applied that product, then did a soil test in a month or two, that it would still be present which is part of what you imply in this video. 2. Let's get into why "soil loading" isn't a good idea. Depending on your CEC which the YM test doesn't report, K is highly susceptible to leaching. Soil loading potassium in an attempt to achieve some "target" is a futile effort. What you apply today could very likely be leached out next week if given the appropriate conditions. Not to mention, that applying potassium without applying nitrogen or having sufficient nitrogen present for the plant to uptake is mostly pointless because at the end of the day, nitrogen will drive the uptake of the potassium. Without nitrogen, very little if any of your potassium will actually be taken up and utilized by the plant further resulting in a waste of time, effort, and dollars. 3. Now, let's get into one of the reasons why applying large amounts of potassium in the late fall is a bad idea. Now that we understand that potassium is susceptible to leaching and also needs nitrogen for uptake, let's consider location and climate. You are located in Michigan I believe? Your growth potential at this point in the season, is very likely on a steep decline (if you haven't already, I suggest you download and play with the Pace Turf Climate Appraisal Form). Your days are getting shorter, cooler etc. and because of this, your inputs required to sustain your turf also fall off very quickly. While applying .5 or 1lb/1000 of potassium in periods of peak growing (100% growth potential) may make sense (assuming you are applying sufficient nitrogen with it), doing so at this point in the growing season is again a futile effort and a waste of time, effort, money and product. So not only is your plant not growing such that there is a high demand for the potassium that you applied, I can only imagine that you will soon be covered in snow that will eventually melt and lead to a wet spring which in all likelihood will leach all the potassium you just applied right out of your soil profile before there it is ever used by the turf. If you plan on pulling another soil sample next spring, I am curious to see what your reported K levels will be following this fall potassium blitz. 4. Another reason high potassium applications in the fall are frowned upon are due to them being linked to increased susceptibility to snow mold. Applying in excess of 1lb/1000 of potassium at this point in the season given your climate will only lead to increased snow mold pressure. So, to summarize and provide a recommendation, since you already applied 1lb/1000 of your SOP, I wouldn't apply any more this fall, save it for next year. Starting next year, ensure that you apply a 1:1 ratio of N to K throughout your growing season. Also, your phosphorus levels aren't incredibly high, so I wouldn't go completely without it, I would ensure that I probably applied say 1-1.5lb of phosphorus per 1000 during your growing season. So speaking very generally, your program next year should apply say 4lb of N, 1 lb of P, and 4lb of K split throughout the growing season, not soil loaded at any one point in time.