Why You Only Need Five Steps

Many companies have many different ways they operate their business. Many start up companies have their roots grounded by what they have learned from their previous work experiences. They only know what they were taught from the company where they started.

Most do not have turf degrees and years of experience growing turf in adverse conditions, they only know what they have been told by a salesman or trainer.

I come from a school of thought that you always need to know why you do what you do. I like to explain things in story form.

Enter the Ham Story.

A young married couple are in the kitchen preparing for Sunday lunch before church services. The husband is enjoying this time with his new bride while eating his breakfast watching his wife prepare for Sunday lunch. Like her mom, she is preparing a Sunday ham. The husband notices his wife chop off the end of the Ham and place it in her Dutch Oven. This perplexes her husband.

"Why did she cut off the end of the ham?" he asks to himself.

Recognizing that this Idea has puzzled him, he must know the answer. The husband asked his wife, "Why did you cut off the end of the ham?"

Her response, “I don’t know, my mom always did so I suppose that’s what you always do."

Later on the young wife asked her mom, "Why do you cut off the end of the ham?"

The mom looked puzzled and replied, “I don’t know.  Your grandmother always did so I supposed that's how you made Sunday ham."

This question stayed with the mother till she had an opportunity to ask her mom, "Why did you always cut off the end of your ham?"

The grandma responded, “Honey, my roaster was too small so, I had to cut the end off for the ham to fit in the roaster”.

This cute story reveals to us some interesting things about human nature, many of our habits and processes of accomplishment come from learned behaviors.

Do we really take the time to ask why we do what we do?

This has been and continues to be my approach to achieving turf health, and my personal life.

Lets answer the the above, Why 5 Steps instead of 6?

There are many types of fertilizer with many different price points, in order to stay competitive all lawn care companies use fertilizer that lasts anywhere from 4-6 weeks.  This produces a continual food source for the turf grass plant.

In Iowa, we are in zone 5 of the growing season.  This equates to about 28 weeks of active growth.  When we take into account how long fertilizer lasts, you will realize that you only truly need 5 applications to fit with our growing season.

Due to my experience, when you fertilize more you are wasting time and product. When you apply less, you run the risk of starving your grass. Just like any living being, plants require food in order to stay healthy to resist insect, fungus, and stress from mowing.

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