It is almost impossible to over fertilize Bermuda. But I would caution you about using animal feeds like Rabbit food as they contain salt.

If you are set on supplementing with an organic I suggest either Soy Bean Meal or Miloranite.

This post was edited by texas-weed on Fri, May 17, 13 at 12:28

good to know. I was thinking the alfalfa pellets just because of the ease of finding them.
I can use Soy Bean meal but sometimes it is hard to find. The other one that was mentioned once was cotton seed meal.

one other question, in my backyard I have very sparse grass that i'm going to nurture back. Mowing back there is like a dust storm. Should i continue to fertilize and mow or concentrate on amending the soil and cover the bare spots with compost and seed and wait to fertilize. I've been waiting to do anything till we hit triple digits but that's this weekend so I guess it's time to make a move.

Honest question.

What do you hope to gain from adding organic fertilizers in between normal fertilizer applications?

good question.
My hope is that the grass will thicken faster and spread to the bare spots. As TW said hard to over fertilize I was just worried about burning the grass and doing more harm than good. However since the organics are more gentle I was hoping I could speed up my lawn a bit.
thoughts?

My thoughts are you aren't going to make the grass do anything. It'll move when conditions are right.

If regular fertilizer isn't getting the job done in the feeding dept., rabbit food isn't going to make a difference.

Which also makes me curious about your other maintainence habits.

How low do you mow?

How much, in inches, do you water and how often?

Do the spots you are looking to improve get full sun?

This post was edited by grasshole on Fri, May 17, 13 at 16:39

Front Lawn faces West so it gets full sun from about 10am till sundown.
I'm still conditioning the lawn to grow out. Last year I cut high thinking that would thicken it out, that was before my awakening and finding this site. I'm cutting at 1.5 inches right now. It's the 2nd lowest setting. I want to go lower but with my schedule I can only mow every 4-5 days if I go lower wouldnt i have to mow more often?
Watering right now is my big restriction. We havent had much rain and we are in stage 3 restrictions however we just had an inch this week. I still see some seed head popping up so i know the lawn is stressed and needs more. i'm planning on getting up early saturday and watering some more.
as for the fertilizer not working, it is working. It's green and growing. I was just hoping to make some extra ground up and get my lawn looking fantastic sooner. I think next year i'm leveling with sand. so i want to make sure i get good coverage and really thicken it up so it can recover faster once the sand is in.

The other one that was mentioned once was cotton seed meal.

That will work, just as good as SBM. But be aware a lot of Cotton seed meal may have pesticide residue.

My hope is that the grass will thicken faster and spread to the bare spots.

OK tap the brakes, using organic is not going to fix that. If you have bare areas, something else is going on. Just guessing and knowing about Bermuda grass lawns is if you have a bare spot in one area indicates SHADE Issues. That being said if shade is the issue the only fix is a chain saw or wrecking ball.

Oh that weed. Always has a reason to spoil the fun. Actually he beat me to it. Cottonseed does have chemical issues. I'm not sure that really amounts to anything just like I'm not sure the salt in rabbit food amounts to anything. I do agree that you will not get the grass to do much more by adding organic fertilizer to the chemical. HOWEVER, adding organic is not a total wash out. It has been noticed that there can be a yo-yo effect from using chemical fertilizers for long periods of time. What happens is you get on a roll with chemical fertilizers and soon enough the grass is entirely dependent on them. If you miss an application by a few days the grass turns to crappp before you get a chance to fertilize. Then you add more fertilizer to get it back on track and possibly overdose it. Again, as has been said, it is hard to OD with fertilizer on bermuda. One mitigating factor in this yo-yo cycle seems to be the occasional use of compost. So since I'm am mister anti-compost, I would suggest you use organic fertilizer at least once per year along with your chemical regimen. This should keep your soil microbes from total exhaustion and boost them back from chemical heck.

In your back yard, simply starting to water should bring something to life. I have successfully restored a bermuda patch that was about 8x20 feet into 98% St Augustine. I expect full reclamation in a month or so. The St Aug died out completely in 2011 (oopsie on the watering) and is now recovered. TW keeps telling me that I can never get all the way back to St Augustine, but I've done it repeatedly over the years.

awesome, thanks to you both.
Shade definitely isnt the issue as we have no trees or anything in my front. My beautiful wife doesn't like trees in front yard, she think it detracts from the house. I think the bare spots and when i say bare i mean 3x5 area are from when i pull weeds or it got to dry. I'm hopeful that as we get hotter the grass will reclaim these areas.
Thanks DChall I will incorporate organic into my regular feeding. I'm thinking maybe 1x in the spring and once in the fall inbetween my normal feedings.
Good luck with that St Aug..lol. I'm going to lay down some top soil and reseed in June to try and help out the back yard. it's all common bermuda so no isses with seeding.

one last question for you....
we are now in stage 3 drought restrictions and quickly heading for stage 4. if we arent getting rain and unable to water should i stop with the feeding schedule?

If you have good sun and bare area sounds like hygroscopic soil in that area. Meaning the soil repeals water. Wetting agents and OM will fix it.

If drought becomes a problem, yes back off on fertilizer, and learn how to water giving it a good soaking when you are allowed to water. At that point all you can try to do is keep the grass alive until next season. .