I was reading an email from my doctor (yes, he communicates regularly) who has a year now in his new practice where he described his philosophy of the Ideal Medical Practice. It is one of those holistic, treat the entire person, kind of philosophies. He then goes into defining "Functional Medicine" as one of his goals.
"Functional medicine examines primary prevention and underlying causes instead of the symptoms for serious chronic disease with the goal of understanding each individual patient's physiological, environmental, and psychosocial contexts within which his or her illnesses or dysfunctions occur."
What does this have to do with Lawn Fertilizer? Well it might be a stretch to understand grass's psychosocial contexts but the similarities between examining the underlying causes instead of the symptoms stuck me as being quite similar to lawn and plant care.
All too often we treat the symptoms because suppliers are offering better and better ways to do so and offer us discounts if we buy more and more of their product. Customers want problems addressed quickly. It is natural to treat symptoms with product we readily have at hand and can administer at times that are convenient for us.
For instance, if the lawn is brown - water it more; if it stays brown - throw a bunch of fertilizer on it; if it gets weeds - kill them; if there is thatch - break out the power rake; and if there is disease - call in the chemicals.
That is symptomatic treatment of grass which, like us, is a living organism and a product of genes and environment. If the underlying soil is in poor health (yes, soil is alive with small creatures) the grass on top likely suffers from poor health too.
Applying high concentrations of fertilizer all at once turns grass green and makes it grow very quickly. Unfortunately it can damage the soil by reducing the population of those small creatures who live in it. After a quick-lived growth spurt the grass can suffer from famine and poor soild conditions causing weeds, disease, thatch,
Virid gets to the root cause analysis to support a plant's health primarly below the surface, in the soil. The soil is the environment grass and other landscape plants live in and the soil itself is alive with bacteria and microbial activity