Enviromental Assets
* Only limited applications of Turf Trust are needed each year to maintain and promote healty-growing turfgrass. Applications are timed for early spring (to coincide with the spring surge of growth to promote expanded leaf production for sugar production), in late summer (as senescent roots die, energy must be available for the prodution of new roots) and late fall (to increase carbohydrate prodution by new grass blades to support late winter tillering and rhizome developement of cool-season grasses.)

* Sunny and shady lawns maintained with Turf Trust contain the primary or secondary minerals needed for optimum performance throughout the year. Aside from primary minerals of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Turf Trust also provides good levels of secondary minerals essential for turfgrass growth, including boron, copper, calcium, iron, manganese, magnesium, molybdenum, sulfur and zinc.

* Turf Trust provides a balanced nitrogen supply for lawns. A one-pound application of nitrogen per thousand square feet in late winter supports carbhydrate production by grass blades without triggering quick, uncontrolled growth. The combination of water-soluble (WS) and water-insoluble nitrogen (WIN) promotes growth, but not with the usual loss of sugar stored in the roots. The 9- to - 12 week release of water-insoluble nitrogen is responsible for the dramatic increase in sugar production through the spring. The more sugar stored in grass roots through late May, the more likely that lawns will withstand "summer stress" conditions of tropical humidity and heat arriving in June.

* Lawns suffer through the summer months when grass blades often turn chlorotic. Yellowing of grass blades is generally attributed to a lack of iron and magnesium in the cell tissue. Turf Trust contains both secondary minerals to prevent chlorotic conditions from developing, thereby maximizing photosynthetic prodution of carbohydrates over the summer.

* In early September, cool-season grasses celebrate a birthday. Roots in place for three or more years generally die of senescence. Suddenly, grass is without the means to extract moisture from the soil. This sudden imbalance could kill grass plants were it not for the flush of energy provided by Turf Trust. A one-pound application of nitrogen per thousand square foot reverses the decline to turfgrass. Water-soluble nitrogen (WSN) flows to immature roots which use the energy to develope lateral roots in the upper 5-to-10 inches of soil when air temperatures remain between 65 and 75 degrees. By Halloween, some eight weeks later, Maryland lawns have produced a new network of roots to store sugar and other minerals over the winter.

* An early November application of Turf Trust at the one-pound rate heralds a monumental effort by Maryland grasses to manufacture and inventory huge amounts of sugar by leaf blades. While daytime temperatures hover in the low 50's, soil temperatures run considerably higher, allowing grass plants to utilize the Halloween application of energy. When temperatures finally drop to 40 degress around Thanksgiving, shoot growth stops entirely, but the slow-release nitrogen provides roots with energy to continue growing beyond the holidays. Only when frost reaches the root zone in mid-to-late January does Turf Trust stop nurturing grass plants.
Ecological Assets

* Thoughout Maryland, residential and professional lawn maintenance invariably triggers problems.
Already, restrictions have been enacted covering fertilizer applications on golf courses and farms, also by professtional lawn service firms licensed to apply fertilizers and pesticides on corporate landscapes and residential properties. Homeowners, of course, have been exempt from these restrictions.

* Turf Trust Lawn Food (24-2-12) synergizes with Maryland's effort to reduce problems stemming from the abuse, misuse and over-fertilization of residential lawns by homeowners. Only three applications of energy are recommended for residential lawns, each coinciding with dramatic change in the performance of cool-season grasses. The one-pound application rate of nitrogen has been supported by turfgrass experts. In 1995, a protracted turfgrass study by Michigan State researchers documented that as long as fertilizer application was held to a maximum of one pound of nitrogen per thousand square feet, leaching losses were negligible. Nitrogen and phosphorus could not possibly leach into aquifers, streams, rivers, even the Chesapeake for that matter. In a 1977 study at Texas A&M, reseachers found that when slow-release fertilizers were applied to the soil, nitrate levels were so low they met EPA standards for drinking water.