Hay Meadows usually give a lot and don't always get equal amounts in return. Nitrogen only fertilizers have been put out on places to get quick green ups and when that happens over a period of time, grasses start thinning out and dying off. This is because phosphorous, potassium and many of your trace minerals are being taken out in the grass that is cut but not being replenished.

The first thing I would recommend is a soil sample. This is the best tool available to tell us what your soil is lacking and what it has plenty of. When we find this out, we can apply a fertilizer that gives the soil what it is low in and we can cut back on what the soil has plenty of. If your feeding your children, you try to feed them a balanced meal. They don't eat beef only for breakfast lunch and dinner. It's the same thing with your grass. Now I'm not telling you to take a sample of your children and have them analyzed but you get the idea.

Without a soil sample, I would recommend a blend that comes close to what grass uses. For every ton of bermuda grass hay you take off your meadow, you are also taking approximately 50 pounds of nitrogen, 14 pounds of phosphorous and 42 pounds of potassium. This does not include all of the trace minerals. Keeping this in mind, I would try to put back what I have taken off. Blends that come close to that ratio include 16-6-12, 21-8-17 and 20-4-16 along with a few others.

My quote of the week comes from Doug Larson. It reads, "What some people mistake for the high cost of living is really the cost of high living."