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Ron’s ArticlesRon’s Texas Two StepMarch 2007 March is two step time in Texas - for your landscape, that is. If you take two steps now your landscape will be lush and pest free throughout the spring and summer. STEP 1: Apply beneficial nematodes.
Beneficial what? Nematodes are microscopic wormlike predators. They prey on pest insects that spend at least one of their stages of life in the soil. That long list includes fire ants, fleas, ticks, chiggers, grubs, chinch bugs, thrips and borers. Nematodes do not thrive in clay soils or under the weather conditions in North Texas - especially drought conditions. So, we apply beneficial nematodes in March and again in October. In these months when we tend to get more rainfall and moderate temperatures. The ideal soil temperature is 65 degrees. You can check with a probe type meat thermometer. Over the years we’ve tried several application routines. By trial and error we came up with a system that seems to maximize the results. First, don’t read the package directions. My favorite brand is ANTIdote. The nematodes come in a packing mix. The instructions are to empty the contents into a bucket of water, agitate the mixture for about 5 minutes, wait 5 minutes, agitate another 5 minutes and then filter out the sediment and spray what’s left. What’s wrong with this? If you were hibernating and somebody poured cold water on you and then tried to shake you out of bed, you’d hang on for dear life. What’s their motivation to jump off the packing medium and into the water? Would you jump off a cruise ship to swim in the sea? Water is not their normal environment - soil is. Plus, most people use chlorinated water - another whack on those poor little creatures. I believe that by following the directions, you throw out most of the healthy nematodes with the packing and spray the ones that were too weak to hang on onto your landscape. The best plan is to buy nematodes now and store them in your refrigerator. Take a little sample to check to see that they’re alive. You can see them with a handheld microscope. RadioShack sells one for $10. Then, wait for a rainy day. Put out buckets to collect the rainwater. Empty the package into the rainwater, stir a bit and store the bucket in a shady spot. At dusk, walk around your property sprinkling the combined nematodes, water and packing mix all over your landscape. You can put a little extra on fire ant mounds. Application at dusk is critical. These are subterranean organisms. They can’t survive in the sunlight. Applying them at dusk gives them the best chance of acclimating before sunrise. Over the next 30 days they will thrive and reproduce. Then the population will begin to decline either because of weather conditions or because they’ve devoured all the insect pests. So, plan to repeat the process in October. STEP 2: Foliar feeding.
When mixing your spray, stick to the recommended dosages. If you overshoot on any of the elements your spray can overly acidic or alkaline - or too potent. The stomata will shut down. You’ll end up wasting your spray and your energy. The compost based solutions I recommend will clog a standard pump-up sprayer. A trombone sprayer is a great investment. It’s a piston-like device made up of two nested cylinders with a nozzle on one end and a hose on the other. You drop the weighted hose in a 5 gallon bucket and spray away. Whether you make your own solution or buy a commercial product, its quality will be significantly improved if you aerate it. Aeration decreases the anaerobic pathogens and increases the beneficial aerobic organisms. Even a bad tea will be significantly improved with proper aeration. All you need is an inexpensive aquarium or pond pump or an air stone. I have dramatic evidence of this phenomenon. I have hundreds of landscape customers who let me experiment on their properties. Last year we began aerating our foliar feeding solution. On property after property we saw spectacular improvement. Clients were calling me to ask, "What have you done differently? I can’t believe how great my yard looks." And we achieved this despite the drought conditions. I can’t wait to see the effect during a normal year. Aeration is well worth the effort. Do Ron’s Texas Two Step this month and you will be thrilled with the results, or my name is not Lawn Doctor Ron. 
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Foliar feeding is spraying nutrients directly onto the leaves - foliage. Plants can ingest nutrients through their leaves as well as their roots. It’s like a booster shot. The best time to spray is late in the evening, followed by early in the morning or, if need be, on an overcast day - the higher the humidity the better. At these times the microscopic pores found on the under side of leaves, stomata, are most receptive.