Does Corn Meal On The Lawn Really Work?

I found this search term in my logs and I was intrigued by the question. The short answer is: yes.

The longer answer is that it depends on what you're doing.

For fungal control, 10 to 20 pounds per thousand square feet are sufficient. Corn meal attracts trichoderma fungus, This fungus takes up space in the soil, giving your invading fungus less room to grow. It also has the ability to kill other fungi, which is a major advantage when fighting a fungus problem in your lawn. However, for severe infections chemical controls may be called for.

For soil conditioning, anything from 10 to about 60 pounds per thousand is fine. Your worms like to eat fungi and bacteria, and the corn meal will grow those in spades. Additionally, bacteria and fungi themselves help condition your soil by attaching soil particles together using glomalin, increasing the soil's structure.

For feeding the lawn I wouldn't use corn meal. Granted, organics don't feed the lawn directly, however there are higher protein (nitrogen) meals available such as soybean that don't require the amounts that corn meal does. Additionally, corn meal doesn't contain large amounts of phosphorous or potassium, making it a less effective fertilizer overall. Sixty pounds of corn meal per thousand square feet would be required four times yearly to feed the lawn. By comparison, fourteen pounds per thousand square feet of soybean meal four times a year will feed the lawn at the same level.

For smaller fungal outbreaks you can use the corn meal from the grocery store. For general soil additives, purchasing the corn meal from your local feed mill is far more cost-effective.

Cracked corn will work just as well, although you may notice birds feeding on it.

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More Corn Meal

I bought 7 more bags of corn meal, six for the lawn and 1 for the gardens. That went down today.

One note that I have is not to purchase the fine-ground stuff in the future. I had to put that down by hand, whereas the rougher ground will go through my spreader. Doing it by hand took four hours.

Well, at least it's complete! That's now 83 pounds of corn meal per thousand (about eight times normal), or enough to condition the soil through spring. If I add any in May, I'll probably go with cracked corn. Right now, I have some very happy earthworms who will hopefully have more earthworms...

Corn Meal and the Lawn

200 pounds of corn meal went down today, and I'm starting to account for the area that will end up being planted with Thuja come April. As of now, I'm using a typical standard of 6,000 square feet of lawn, figuring that about 1,000 will either be under or behind the new bushes and I won't want to feed it because I don't want it to grow that much.

So that works out to 33.3 pounds per thousand, about half what I'd like to add (but I could only get 4 bags and will need to go for four more). Corn meal is mostly a soil conditioner, or used to combat fungal issues, which I don't have. I'm looking to deepen the topsoil more, however, and for that it works well and can be put down in very large amounts as it has few resources. I use a standard NPK of 1.65-0.65-0.40 for that, a far cry from soybean's 7-1-2.