Durham County Homeowner Fertilizer Behaviors Survey: Summary and Analysis of Results
Abstract
Durham County must comply with State mandated nutrient reduction rules by 2021. Current
management plans will prove costly. Residential and commercial fertilize application
is not included in those current plans; however, these sources of nutrient inputs
are poorly understood. Thus, a survey was administered to fill in information gaps
about Durham County homeowners’ fertilizer behaviors.
The two key areas of interest to the County are Best Management Practices (BMPs) and
fertilizer application rates. BMP’s include sweeping impervious surfaces, not fertilizing
before it rains, and not fertilizing in buffer zones for streams and lakes. 1,000
single-occupancy households were surveyed from March to April of 2013. Participants
were selected randomly via a double-randomization process. The survey was administered
using mixed methods.
Findings indicate that few homeowners know how to determine the correct amount of
fertilizer to apply to the lawn, resulting in higher risk of over-application among
do-it-yourself homeowners. Mean nitrogen (N) application rates are between 1.8 and
3.1 lbs N/1,000 sqft/year, with between 1/4 and 1/2 of homeowners at risk of over-applying.
While most homeowners report practicing best management practices (BMPs), misapplication
due to not practicing BMPs is also a common problem. Roughly 2/3 of homeowners or
their lawn care companies practice fewer than 1/2 of the BMPs they are responsible
for.
For both misapplication and over-application, the problems primarily seem to be knowledge-based
ones and not motivation-based ones. Thus, public education may do much to correct
the issues found by the survey. Please direct questions to Morgan Fleming at sspitfire1@yahoo.com
with subject heading "2013 Fertilizer MEM MP Report Questions".
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8150Citation
Fleming, Morgan (2013). Durham County Homeowner Fertilizer Behaviors Survey: Summary and Analysis of Results.
Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8150.Collections
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