The Benefits of Late Fall Fertilization

When leaves start changing colors and falling to the ground, you might think your lawn stops growing as the ground hardens for winter. While lawn care may be the last thing on your mind, there are many benefits to fertilizing in late fall. Fall fertilization increases root development and helps the plant store carbohydrates, which will be used as food over the winter.
Spring, fall and winter (when the ground isn’t frozen) are the cool season grasses’ primary growing periods. Summer is considered the “off season” or dormant time (unless you have a mild and rainy summer). During hot summer months, cool season grasses will lose some of their root systems due to high soil temperatures and drought. As temperatures cool off and normal rainfall returns in the fall, the turf will begin to recover.
Disease and prime insect conditions are tapering off for the year, so it’s important to take advantage of the fall growing season as much as you can. In the late fall, grass can utilize fertilizer with less likelihood of disease development, due to lower temperatures. It is also important to remember that in the fall daylight hours are getting shorter, impacting the way photosynthesis and grass work together. As the daylight hours get shorter, the plant will produce less top growth and use the nutrients toward root development. That’s why grass grows slower in the fall than in the spring, if fed in the fall.
Grass stores unused fall fertilizers as carbohydrates for use during winter months, allowing the plant to stay alive during shorter daylight hours (winter), when it is unable to produce enough food through photosynthesis. Grass will also green-up quicker in the spring when it has leftover carbohydrates.
Late fall fertilization is truly a win-win situation for both you as a homeowner, and for your grass as a live plant. You get a healthier, greener lawn with a better root system the next season, and the grass recovers from summer stress and gets stronger going into winter. Please contact NaturaLawn of America – Cape May Court House at (609) 465-1405 or visit CapeMayCourtHouse.NaturaLawn.com for more information about the advantages of late fall fertilizing.