If you’re planning on overseeding the lawn, now is the time. But before making your purchase, do you read the package label? If not, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Seed labels are required by law and are the consumers’ protection against buying inferior seed or trash.

Grass seed spread correctlyGrass seed spread correctlyA few weeks back, I took a call from someone who was having problems. The weather had turned hot and his lawn “melted away.” As it turned out, he had used a well-known national brand of grass seed. Just the weekend before, I was at one of those big-box hardware stores and happened to turn over a bag of this national brand seed and read the label. I was struck at the amount of filler used in the seed mix. I had to politely tell the caller that his problems were due to the large amount of undesirable grass species for our KC climate the manufacturer used to fill their mix of seed. So, always read the label.

The seed label shows many aspects about the quality of the seed contained in the bag. Most important, it tells us the variety of seed contained in the bag and the amount of “other crop” seeds. Other crop seeds include such things as weed seed and other grassy weeds such as orchard grass or rough bluegrass.

Lower cost seed will normally have a higher content of “other crop” seeds, and often may not name a specific variety of bluegrass or tall fescue. When reading the label, variety is important. Through research testing at Kansas State and other universities, recommended varieties of turf can be determined for our area. Examples of recommended bluegrass varieties include: Award, Awesome, Bluestone, Everest, Glenmont, Midnight, Rambo and Total Eclipse to name a few. Tall fescue selections include varieties such as Apache III, Blackwatch, Dynasty, Falcon IV, Padre, Watchdog and Wolfpack. (For a complete list, visit www.johnson.ksu.edu.) Labels that list “unnamed” or “common” are usually of low quality and provide no information for determining what degree of success you may have with them.

Look closely for the “other crop” content in a seed mix. In some cases, it may state the weed seed contained in “other,” while some mixes will provide no information. The question is how much “other crop” seed is too much? It depends on what the crop actually is and what kind of quality the buyer expects. In some cases, one-half of one percent can ruin a bag of seed. For example, if a bag of tall fescue seed contained .5% orchard grasses, the buyer would end up planting about 16 orchard grass seeds per square foot. In the case of rough bluegrass in a bag of Kentucky bluegrass, the buyer would be planting 35 seeds per square foot of lawn. Multiply that by an 8,000 square foot lawn and that’s a lot of “trash” a homeowner might not have bargained for.

Also, watch out for seed mixes that contain large amounts of perennial ryegrass or creeping red fescue. These grass species do have uses in the home lawn, but usually only in limited situations such as shade or quick green up. Normally, these species do not make a hardy, drought-tolerant grass for the average Johnson County residence.

The moral of the story is, don’t just look at the pretty pictures on the bag, or be swayed by the fancy names like “play,” “shade,” or “leisure.” It’s what’s inside that counts, not the fancy marketing schemes. In most cases, you will need to turn the bag or box over and carefully read the label. Check to see what you are buying.

As with any product, be an informed consumer and know what you’re buying. Grass seed is expensive and quality seed demands its price. As the old adage goes, “You get what you pay for,” and “Buyer beware.”