I Tested the World’s CHEAPEST Liquid Fertilizer

In this video, we will show you the BEST kept Secret in Lawn Care and it ONLY costs $6 per gallon!

We will be applying a rather unusual product to our lawn today called Diesel Exhaust Fluid. Not many people know that Diesel Exhaust Fluid can be used as a lawn fertilizer as it only contains 2 simple ingredients: Urea and Water.

Urea is the main source of nitrogen in diesel exhaust fluid and it is found in nearly every liquid and granular fertilizer on the market. Nitrogen is the single most important nutrient to add to a lawn. Nitrogen allows grass to grow new green foliage which is then used by the plant to photosynthesize, generating energy for sustained root growth and disease prevention. Urea contains 46% Nitrogen and is a very concentrated form of Nitrogen making diesel exhaust fluid a very effective source of nitrogen.

➡️ Products used:

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Application Rates (Mixed with 1 gallon of water per 1k sqft):

Low Rate (0.10 lbs of N) : 9.5 oz

Medium Rate (0.15 lbs of N): 14.25 oz

High Rate (0.20 lbs of N): 19 oz

*BE SURE TO MIX WITH 1 GALLON OF WATER PER 1K SQFT AND WATER IN AFTER APPLICATION

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Timestamps:
Intro: 0:00
Best Kept Secret in Lawn Care: 0:35
What is Diesel Exhaust Fluid?: 01:02
Fertilizer Test: 01:45
Application Rates: 02:49
RESULTS: 03:47

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Thank you for watching!

[PrincessCutLawnCare]

🔵 Application Rates Per 1k sqft:
(Mixed w 1 gallon of water per 1ksqft)

Low Rate (0.10 lbs of N) : 9.5 oz per 1k sqft

Medium Rate (0.15 lbs of N): 14.25 oz per 1k sqft

High Rate (0.20 lbs of N): 19 oz per 1k sqft

*BE SURE TO MIX WITH 1 GALLON OF WATER PER 1K SQFT AND WATER IN AFTER APPLICATION.

[buckeyeyooper]

No explanation needed, I saw your New Balance shoes and trust you with my lawn.

[MrKillerRC]

FYI, you can buy the DEF fluid cheaper at the pump at truckstops then you can pre-bottled in the store

[jayh]

Well... I knew it was only a matter of time that someone else would find this out and make it public for all to see!
As a diesel mechanic and lawn care freak it didn't take me long to put two and two together! Been doing this for the past 7 years.

[testticklehead]

Been gardening professionally my whole life and never knew about this. Until you mentioned the chemical breakdown of DEF I honestly thought this was a prank video. Glad I found your channel, you just got yourself another subscriber.

[huntnwithhunter]

I figured this out on my own last week and now ran across this video after testing on my lawn. Luckily I get this stuff for free from wrecked semi trucks I have to replace the tanks on

[tdhoeffel]

Love the content and that you did not sell out by pushing other expensive liquid fertilizer

[outlet]

As a DIYer with a bad back, I always look at how other DIYers do things. When I saw you bending down using that spray can, I had to say, "Not with my back." I bought a very cheap tool that allows me to stand up and roll the device on its wheel. I just push the trigger when I'm ready to spray. When I fill up my sprayer, I always add a blue dye to the mixture. When spraying, the dye shows me where I have sprayed and any areas I missed.

[kevinberniebarron]

Hey George,
I was a golf course superintendent for 35 years! I use to "spoon feed" liquid nitrogen on my greens!
I found this extremely interesting!
I think I'll try this on my Bermuda front yard!
Thanks for the info!
Blessings to you and your family,
Kevin Barron

[jasperstarr]

Good stuff, George. I really enjoy your channel.

Seeing a lot of the math questions here, I understand why you didn't go into the details about how you worked it out, but just presented clear, concise instructions at 3 typical application rates. Since I'm thinking about using DEF for a fall nitrogen blitz, I decided to go through the math - so I thought I'd share it here. I'll explain the calculations, but probably won't answer a lot of questions. I'm not here to do remedial math tutoring.

Firstly, the analysis of 15-0-0 is because the DEF is 32.5% urea and urea is 46% nitrogen (46% of 32.5 is 14.95, rounded to 15).

Now for the rest:
A gallon of DEF weighs about 9, 9.1, or 9.2 pounds, depending on source, at least that's what my internet searches have shown. I'll use the medium value of 9.1. Our 15-0-0 analysis tells us that DEF is 15% nitrogen by weight, so:
-- a gallon of DEF contains 9.1 x .15 = 1.365 pounds of nitrogen.
-- and a fluid ounce of DEF contains 1.365 / 128 = 0.0106640625 pound of nitrogen. (There are 128 fluid ounces in a gallon.)

And that comports with the rates George shows above.
Low rate: 9.5 x 0.0106640625 = .10 (and some change)
Medium rate: 14.25 x 0.0106640625 = .15 (and some change)
High rate: 19 x 0.0106640625 = .20 (and some change)

So if anyone else is thinking about using DEF for their fall nitrogen blitz, we may as well do the calculations for that magic 0.5 pound we're looking for. 0.5 / 0.0106640625 = about 47. (For the math alert, you might have also noticed you could approximate that by taking the above low rate x 5 or the high rate x 2.5). So that's 47 fluid ounces of DEF per 1, 000 square feet in however much water you need to spray it to evenly cover 1, 000 square feet (George stipulates a gallon) to get your 0.5 pound.


As always - thanks, George. 😄

[michaelo]

Now the price of DEF is going to start increasing! Thanks George…. (LOL) 😂😉

[jtotheshua]

Love your channel dude! I’ve been in lawn service for almost 10 years now and your channel is one of the best there is on lawn service my man.

[BobY]

After watching your video, I did some quick internet research and found a paper that talked about the benefits of adding urea to herbicides to increase effectiveness (weed and feed in my words) and so I plan to add DEF with my herbicide application to give the lawn and herbicide a boost. Thanks for the pro tip!

[SRQmoviemaker]

I've been doing this to my lawn for a few months now thanks to this video and thought I'd share that its greener and better than ever.

[bigtmk]

Cool video George. I’ve been using household ammonia as liquid fert for the last two seasons with great success. 1/2 a cup per 1, 000 sq ft works well.

[ivepoints]

The sight of him watering the yard with a gas pump nozzle has me rolling!!!!

[oa]

Thank you for this information. I'd like to tell anybody who's in Canada right now, Princess Auto has an ongoing deal for Shell Rotella DEF. 2.5 gallon (9.7Liters) is 17.77+tax until August 27th. I got one and wanted to inform anybody interested :D

[TheNewMediaoftheDawn]

I’ll give you credit, my truck ran out of DEF last year luckily just as I reached my destination, but I certainly would have thought it was a petro-chemical based ingredient not just straight nitrogen, good to know for the apocalypse, lol. Human urine diluted in water is also a cheap nitrogen hit.

[desaint]

you can get the price down to around $4.00 a gallon if you buy the store brand and it's the identical ingredients/percentages

[nickgibb]

ive been using this stuff for the lawn since DEF came out. I buy it in 55 gal drums for $250.00. And yes I do use it in my fleet trucks also....lol