Repairing lawn grass with SF60 Biochar Super Compost

We moved house eight weeks ago. Yours truly, keen to keep the lawn neat and tidy, decided to hand-pull weeds from the lawn.  A week into the task, I spotted the last tenants had left a spray bottle of weed killer in the shed.  I thought I had scanned the label for the obvious "kills all", "not for grass" notices. Clearly not! (The warning was on back in small font text). 

Within a few days I had numerous brown 100% dead lawn patches. I know - organic gardening, do not use - serves me right. My defence is I don't like tipping chemicals down drain, so I thought may as well use it up on the lawn then it's out of the way.

Middle of summer, very hot and dry. Re-seeding with grass would have to wait until Autumn. I wondered; if I added some SF60 Biochar Super Compost would it help regenerate the brown patches faster and save the need to re-seed in Autumn?

You can see from the photo below positive things are happening.

What's going on?

The grass is starting to grow back into the brown area.  It is likely the soil microbes are slowly biodegrading the weed killer; this is as expected. 

There is a taller, dark green grass ring around the brown patch and distinct from the rest of the green lawn, The grass is growing much stronger in the ring near to the SF60.

Why?

• The SF60 is having a fertiliser effect. Applied as a top dressing, nutrients in SF60 get flushed into the brown patch increasing its concentration. The grass nearest benefits and becomes darker green.
• Increased water retention is a known benefit of SF60. The brown patch with SF60 applied is holding more water. The grass nearest (in dark ring) has access to more water than rest of lawn so it grows taller and faster.

The results are consistent with the greening and moss reduction achieved in previous years when adding super compost from our HOTBIN composter to specific areas of the lawn.

Conclusion

SF60 has a beneficial effect of lawn grass. Stronger, faster growing grass will invade the brown bare patches.