You're not in trouble, pH is really a symptom, not a problem in and of itself, and in this case the balances are mostly fine for the stuff that generates your pH. Other balances have a problem, though....

pH 7.5: From high calcium and mid-range magnesium levels, plus some sodium. No direct fiddling required.

OM 4.9%: Organic matter, firmly in the Good range. I'd still think about raising this whenever I could, of course.

Exchange Capacity 9-ish: Could be sandy silt, could be silty sand, might even have some Bentonite clay in there. It doesn't matter, this number just tells me how resistant the soil is to change (in your case, modestly). Numbers from 10 to 15 are considered optimal, but 9 is close enough. Raising your organic matter will raise this number.

Sulfur 12: Perfect. It's high enough not to be a problem, and low enough to have a huge amount of wiggle room for additions to the soil.

Phosphorus 87: Quite low, but not deficient. Recommendations below for starter fertilizer, or any fertilizer with a large second number (like 20-27-5).

Bermuda is not a northern lawn, so applications of nitrogen and phosphorus have to be clocked with what the grass wants. You didn't tell me your location, so I'll guess it's midrange-South and your lawn is going into slowdown for the year.

Calcium 79.8%: High, but not unreasonably so. Excess calcium isn't toxic, so no worries here.

Magnesium 13.5%: While the number in the measurement is a touch high, the saturation percentage is perfect. No adjustments require or recommended.

Potassium 1.3%: Low, and lower than I like for disease and weather tolerance. While I could do this with a balanced fertilizer, I'd rather separate the applications a little bit, so I'm recommending you locate potassium sulfate (most landscape and smaller garden stores can order it for you). It's available online, but prices and shipping tend to be rather high.

Sodium 1.6%: Not a problem, but sodium is a strongly alkaline ion and kicking your pH up. This is in the "keep an eye on" range as I don't want to see it go up. Always make sure to water the lawn an inch at a time about once a week, and it'll help flush this out slowly. Shallow, frequent watering will increase it.

Most micros, except iron: Within normal ranges. Copper could use a bit of a tap, but not next year while there are oodles of resources being dropped. It's not a critical problem.

Iron 53: Very low, borderline deficient at your pH. So how bad is your grass' color? At that pH-iron combination, I'd expect pretty bad (but I doubt anybody else's around you is much better). Using Milorganite will raise this over time, as well as deliver a blast of iron that deepens the color. Over time, that temporary deepening starts to last longer, until you notice that the color isn't changing any longer and it's always dark green.

Recommendations:

Whenever you like during the season: Bag rate of Milorganite to raise iron levels slowly. You could do this as often as every two weeks if you wanted, or once a month, or only a few times a season. Dealer's choice as long as you're appropriately feeding your Bermuda otherwise.

May 1: Feed with starter fertilizer at bag rate.

May 15: Apply 1 pound per thousand square feet of potassium sulfate.

June 1: Feed with starter fertilizer at bag rate.

June 15: Apply 1 pound per thousand square feet of potassium sulfate.

July 1: Feed with any high-nitrogen fertilizer at the bag rate.

August 1: Feed with starter fertilizer at bag rate.

August 15: Apply 1 pound per thousand square feet of potassium sulfate.

September 1: Feed with starter fertilizer at bag rate.

September 15: Apply 1 pound per thousand square feet of potassium sulfate.

>>bought some 8-0-50 from Lesco)
Milorganite every 45 days.

I jumped right to the Logan Labs report. Check the 8-0-50. If it says "potassium sulfate" or "sulphate of potash" on the bag, it's fine.

If it says "potassium chloride" or "muriate of potash" on the bag, return it. The chloride form is extremely harsh, and I dislike using it because it disrupts the soil biology too much.

If you absolutely can't source potassium sulfate, I can design a safe application using potassium chloride, but it'll be a lot slower.

...and where do you live? Your pH sounds like the pH in most of Texas, so it would be helpful to know.

Also is shade an issue with the lawn? Is the lawn on the north side of some trees or between two buildings?

This post was edited by dchall_san_antonio on Mon, Nov 3, 14 at 20:15

Sorry forgot to mention. Houston tx. 90% of lawn gets 7+ hrs full sun. House faces South.

Morpheuspa, thank you so much for your time!

I will follow your recommendations. Anything that I should do now?

I guess I will be returning the bag of potash, it is actually 8-5-20 mariate of potash and have not used it.

Color is ok, but could definitely be better. Bermuda is still green but slowed way down. temps in mid 70s for high and mid low 60s for lows.

Again thank you.

Morpheuspa, thank you so much for your time!

I will follow your recommendations. Anything that I should do now?

I guess I will be returning the bag of potash, it is actually 8-5-20 mariate of potash and have not used it.

Color is ok, but could definitely be better. Bermuda is still green but slowed way down. temps in mid 70s for high and mid low 60s for lows.

Again thank you.

Okay I'm outta ideas. If you had written in with that problem as you described it, I would have suggested a soil test as a last resort. You're doing everything right.

I'm still curious about your location. Are you on the west side of Houston? How would you characterize your soil? Clayey, sandy, rocky, something else?

For right now, skip doing much. I don't like adding things to Bermuda near the end of the season. It doesn't respond like my own bluegrass will (just fine, although it does tend to wonder why you're bothering).

Nothing is so far off that you can't wait until next year.

One thing that Bermuda does like, and that will cost you density if you don't supply it, is 1 pound of nitrogen per thousand square feet every month during the growing season. So target that, which is just under 5 pounds of 21-0-0 per month per thousand square feet.

The Milorganite will help feed the lawn, but can really be ignored in nitrogen calculations. It's a nice extra, though!

I live in Baytown tx to be exact. Soil is what most people here describe as black gumbo. Extremely dense soil. When dry, hard as a rock and when wet, seems like clay.
i performed a jar test but i determined it was inconclusive since most of it seemed like clay balls sinking to the bottom of the jar.

Now, the back yard (St augustine), I have no problems at all, except for my dogs digging everywhere. I can easily dig down 2-3 feet and the soil seems very rich, lots of earthworms, but there are 2 trees that provide plenty of organic matter.

When I first moved in the house mid august 2012, the St augustine was in very poor shape.
No weeds but it was light green in color and hardly growing. When I mean hardly growing, I mean, I NEVER mowed it.
The ground was EXTREMELY hard. Watering was not an issue either, we had plenty of rain, but I think the soil was hydrophobic.

Today the soil is very soft when wet, hard when it dries. I used A LOT of shampoo and aerated once, but only to overseed with Rye grass. My idea was too have the ryegrass build a massive root system and break the soil a bit. The PERENNIAL ryegrass came in lush and super green and didn't completely die off until late May into june. Probably why my bermuda never came in thick.

Thank you morph for the advise. I was looking at lesco 15-5-10 fertilizer for my balanced fert application in the spring, but also noticed the K was derived from mariate of potash. I'm guessing you recommend to forget about that too??

That's a more marginal answer, actually.

I don't absolutely hate muriate of potash (potassium chloride) with the heat of a thousand suns or anything like that. It's just harsh and has to be handled carefully.

A once a year balanced fertilizer application, which will be targeting 1 pound of nitrogen will target 2/3 pound of potash equivalent, or about 0.4 pounds of muriate of potash per thousand square feet.

That's actually fine, and under the limit of 0.5 pounds per thousand.

Sure, go for it. But only once a year. Additional potassium applications (and you do need a lot of potassium) should be from potassium sulfate (sulfate of potash).

Keep in mind you also need a lot of phosphorus, and that application of 15-5-10 is essentially adding zip.

If you follow my recommendations exactly, the starter will supply enough nitrogen for the lawn when combined with frequent Milorganite applications. It'll also exactly target your shortages for P and K and bring everything back into some semblance of balance.

Deviation isn't a problem, but keep in mind the numbers won't work out quite right. This isn't an exact science, and ballparking the numbers is OK, however.

So I bought 20-24-5 starter fertilizer.
0-0-52 potassium sulfate, 16 lbs for $25 on ebay.
Will be using 21-0-0 ammonium sulfate as well.
I'm gonna use milorganite with every feeding at full bag rate.
Almost forgot, I'm gonna try to maintain at .5" since I'm going to start using primo maxx as well.

I will follow the recommendations as I was instructed by morph except for starting 2 weeks early or even a month early since by April we start seeing temps in the 80s.

Sure, feel free to back those to pleasant, but not hot, weather if you want (potassium sulfate is gentle enough that even 95 degrees wouldn't be a problem).

If that's March, then it's March. I'd mentally targeted it for highs in the sixties, occasional frost, or about our April weather.