This is the first time I have written a Lawncology article about a specific product. I believe that gaining a better understanding of our industry from a soil and plant perspective trumps talking about product specifics. This is a unique situation however, because the N-Ext RGS™ specialty product is gaining a tremendous amount of “buzz” in the industry nationwide. I think that the best direction here is to explain how and why it came to be, the methods that are being used, the benefits that customers are seeing, and lastly on the ways this can fit into a fertility program.

History: in the beginning, the earth was without RGS. Humans flung granular fertilizer from motorized carts at an overwhelming pace… Okay, so this is me being humorous about the actual inspiration behind RGS, but it isn’t far off from reality.

The number of lawn companies using ride-ons for their fertility programs is only increasing. While I am very old school and enjoy truck mounted rigs and walking, I am becoming the minority in this “New Age” of efficiency. I became acutely aware of a “hole” in our ability to sell products to these companies, as they are not set up for liquid fertility. The volume of tanks are too low and the cost to retrofit didn’t outweigh the benefits in many cases because every modification leads to another. My “fertility program” products by design were meant for high volume applications of 1.5-5 gpm depending on setup and maybe as low as 1gpm for certain turf types. I noted that as more water was used, the less problem heavily-thatched lawns were to convert to liquid. Typically these lawns were treated with granular fertilizer to accommodate poor cultural practices.

So now we have this surge of ride-ons taking over the industry. Where this ends up as a limiting factor is in the ability to adjust nutrition on the fly when you see something out of whack in the field. And let’s face it, the granular business is limited on what can be put in a bag to provide “complete nutrition.” When products come out that are more complete or more efficient, they are met with an industry wide sigh because of cost. Often times, even the University studies don’t show enough of a benefit to justify the cost. So what do we do? I now have a problem that needs a solution… perfect. People are testing out less than reputable products in their saddle tanks on the ride-ons and having clogging, compatibility issues, messes. But the need is there for something to make their nutrition program shine.

So back at the drawing board, I went for simplicity. Based on the last 15 years of playing with these components and taking a general survey of what the industry is using for granular products, I chose to go after the parts that were missing, increase the efficiency of applied nutrients, increase the soils ability to chelate nutrients, enhance the rooting aspect of the plant to create more surface area for applied nutrients, and reduce stress that derive from heat or drought. These components were easy to parse out of our current product line and supply in a user friendly, non-clogging and inexpensive way to get these results. What I didn’t know was how people were going to use this product in different ways than intended.

So again, back to the product concept. N-Ext stands for Nitrogen Extension, RGS for Root Growth Stimulant. There is the secret acronym for you, not earth shattering or mind blowing, just a good old fashioned hidden product explanation right in front of you. So that was the intended use, you don’t need to spend excess dollars on granular fertilizers with 20 different forms of N when one will do. Most companies are on property no more than 8 weeks between application and let’s face it, it’s not hard to keep grass green almost that long on ammonium sulfate alone. Add a little RGS kick to that and suddenly 8 weeks is easy, and low cost.

But back to the “uses” of the product and how it’s been a bit of a head scratcher around here. So in the summer of 2015, one of our applicators decided to spray some dollar spot in his back yard with a 6 ounce rate of RGS in a back pack sprayer. The fungus rolled over and was gone in 7 days with the turf totally recovered. He then did it again and again whenever there was a fungus present and the results were consistent. I received this report and said, “this is not a fungicide, it is not labeled as such and we cannot promote it in that way.” Well, word got out as it always does and I sent some to another a company who experienced a similar result. Then another company used it for growing in turf that was damaged and another for seeding, and so on and so forth. But the main draw became these two items, stress recovery and fungus suppression.

I am still not willing to say that this is an alternative to fungicides, but at some point I am going to have to concede on this issue. We have now seen curative effects on Large Patch, Dollar Spot, Brown Patch, Necrotic, Red Thread to name a few and reports of dramatically reduced fungicide use from larger companies that have a very high expense in the fungicide department. But why is this happening?

I don’t have a real answer still. Speculation is as such, the primary ingredients are unique to our products. The humic that we make in Greensboro is highly active. We shock it to get the highest amount of both biological activity and humic acid that we can. We slow brew the material and filter down over a several week process before it is ready for use. This produces highly active material. The fulvic fraction increases over this time as well. Lighter molecules separate out as time passes and gives us greater concentrations. The kelp portion is not a reconstituted material as is standard in the industry. This is a blended material which we process to exacting standards.  It is practically alive and contains a heavily concentrated amount of PGR’s and amino acids that are untouched in the market place. When all of the components come together in a homogeneous blend, the materials begin to synergistically work together to form a highly biologically active compound that is ready to hit the soil.

All of these materials could be doing a few things against the unwelcome fungus such as, capturing excess nitrogen that is volatilizing on the soil surface. Humic captures atmospheric N very quickly. If there is a thatch layer that is trapping heat and moisture, humic substance will pull that N back down and strip the fungus of a food source. The anaerobic conditions often found in those scenarios are quickly flipped around and suddenly there is a reset of natural soil digestion. In addition, the hormones in the product facilitate the ability to drive the plant down further away from danger by getting into deeper soil and triggering an immune response to help fight off leaf infections of fungus. The cell division would increase and outpace the infestation.

Another possible yet unlikely reason is the potassium applied through the product. It has been noted for years that potassium phosphite reduces instances of fungus, and although we do not use phosphite material, the low levels of potassium present may be playing a role. If this were the case though, someone would have seen this effect by applying humic acid liquid to a problem area and getting a positive result, but I have not seen this personally.

The bottom line is that RGS can be added to any fertility service for $9.00 an acre and the end user will be better off for it. I would like to send a shout out to Matt Martin of the Grass Factor who took the time to review and share his experience and explain in great detail the many benefits of adding humic substance to your program. Thank you Matt!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40DH0w5AXcA

[ The Best Kept Secret in the Lawn Care Industry? – Matt Martin, The Grass Factor, YouTube Channel |