Specialty vs. Farm Fertilizers for Turf

Professional golf course superintendents, lawn care supervisors and groundskeepers often spend 3-5 times more for a slow release, urea based, speciality fertilizer rather than urea or ammonium nitrate. Most speciality fertilizers contain 1/5 to 1/3 of its total N in insoluble or slow release form. This slow release nitrogen is included to Cll decrease the number of applications necessary (2) reduce burn potential (3) give uniform rather than a flush of growth and (4) increase N efficiency by reducing leaching and volatilization loss