The age and condition of the spreader may affect the flow of the product. The spreader may need to be calibrated to get proper coverage. It is always a good idea to calibrate your own spreader, even if the manufacturer provides guidelines for setting the spreader with different products. It’s easy to calibrate and, if you make a note of your results, you only have to do it once for each product.

To calibrate your spreader:

Step-by-Step Procedure	Example
	We want to apply fertilizer at a rate of 20 lbs per 1,000 sq. ft. The fertilizer comes in a 50 lb bag.
Take a sheet of plastic or a tarp (ideally something bigger than 10’ x 10’ but smaller will work too) and lay it on the ground. If it’s breezy, put something heavy on each corner to keep it in place.
If your surface is big enough, measure and mark an area of 10’ x 10’ on the surface. An area of 10’ x 10’ ideal because it makes the math easy, but it could be any dimension that gives you a convenient square footage number - 5’ x 10’ or 5’ x 8’, whatever you care to make it.	In our example, our area is 10’ x 10’ or 100 square feet
Set your spreader to the setting you think will give you approximately the application rate you want. If the material you want to spread is fine and granular (for example, corn gluten meal), set the spreader about 1/3 open. Don’t worry about getting it right because you can adjust later.	Our fertilizer is fairly fine, granular material so we open it up about 1/3 of the way.
Empty a small amount of fertilizer or other material into the spreader and run it over the area you marked off as if you were making an application to your lawn.	We pour about 10 lbs of fertilizer into the spreader.
Carefully gather up the material you spread on the surface.
Take a container of some kind (you’ll use it to weigh the fertilizer you just spread) and weigh it and using a household scale.	Our bowl weighs 8 oz.
Pour the material you spread into the container and weigh it again.	Bowl plus fertilizer weighs 32 oz (or 2 lbs)
Subtract the weight of the container.	Total weight (32 oz) minus weight of bowl (8 oz) = 24 oz (or 1.5 lbs).
Calculate the conversion factor for 1,000 square feet. (1,000 square feet divided by the square footage of your test area).	1,000 square feet divided by 100 square feet (size of our test area) = 10. Our conversion factor is 10.
Calculate the application rate of your spreader for the current setting, using this material. Multiply weight of applied fertilizer by conversion factor.	Weight of fertilizer (1.5 lbs) multiplied by conversion factor (10) = 15 lbs per 1,000 sq. ft.
Adjust the spreader setting according to your results.	In our example, we want an application rate of 20 lbs per 1,000 sq. ft., so we have two options. We can either open up the spreader a bit more to get the target application rate or we can close the spreader a little and plan on making two passes with the spreader at half the recommended rate.
Write down the results so that next time you’ll know exactly what setting to use for this particular product.

We recommend the use of a rotary spreader only for the application of Cockadoodle Doo products.

For DROP SPREADERS please go to the end of the page for more information

The following chart is meant to provide general guidance
when an actual setting is not available.

	Spreader Range	Setting Fertilizer	Setting Weed Control
Rotary
	1-10	10	4
	1-18	18	6
	1-24	24	8
	1-40	40	14

Brand	Type	Model or other Information	Setting for Lawn Fertilizer	Setting for Weed Preventer
Cyclone	Rotary	B1-80(1-9)	9	3
EZ Grow	Rotary	(2-16)	16	7
Green Line	Rotary	(1-10)	10	4
Greenview	Rotary	Jet-Spred Rotary (2-18)	18	7
Greenview	Rotary	Jet-Spred SS1 (5-30)	30	13
Jonathan Green	Rotary	(1-10)	10	4
Ortho	Rotary	545 EZGro (2-16)	16	7
Ortho	Rotary	(2-16)	16	7
Precision	Rotary	Pro (1-10)	10	4
Precision	Rotary	(1-10)	10	4
Precision	Rotary	TBS7000RD (1-14)	14	5
Precision	Rotary	(1-20)	20	7
PrizeLawn	Rotary	MPR I (0-18)	18	6
PrizeLawn	Rotary	LF-1 (0-18)	18	6
Red Devil	Rotary	TBS4500PRC (1-10)	10	4
Republic	Rotary	545 EZGro (2-16)	16	6
Scotts	Rotary	Speedy Green 1000 (2-18)	18	8
Scotts	Rotary	EdgeGuard (2-18)	18	8
Scotts	Rotary	Speedy Green 2000 (2-18)	18	8
Scotts	Rotary	Speedy Green 3000 (2-18)	18	8
Scotts	Rotary	Easy Green (22-32)	32	26
Spyker	Rotary		10	4
Sta-Green	Rotary	(1-10)	10	4
Stinger	Rotary	(1-10)	10	4
Vicon	Rotary	(1-10)	10	4
Vigero	Rotary	(1-10)	10	4

Using Your Spreader
Follow the specific spreading instructions that came with your spreader. When working with spreaders, always load a spreader on a surface where an accidental spill can be cleaned up and won’t matter (driveway, walkway, etc).

Common practice is to first run the spreader around the periphery of the area you are treating; this ensures a consistent application around the edge of your lawn. Next, you run the spreader back and forth within the area bounded by your first perimeter run. Always allow on overlap to avoid missed streaks or “holidays”. Ideally, apply your material at half the recommended rate and make two sets of runs, first back and forth in one direction, then again another set of runs at 90 degrees to the first set. This ensures a good consistent coverage and it compensates for any uneven patches.

Clean-Up and Maintenance
The professionals usually say that, after using a spreader, a thorough dry cleaning beats a sloppy wet cleaning any day. It’s certainly a good idea to empty your spreader completely and shake out or remove with a brush any remaining material. Keeping moving parts lubricated helps too.

Drop Spreaders

Drop spreaders are "okay", but they take about 5 times longer, are very inaccurate, you have to use hose or string to line up the rows, and you usually end up with "zebra" striping (at least we always do, no matter how careful we are).  the rotary/circular/throw spreader is so much easier;   

For setting it depends on the product you are using.

Our Weed control or our Organic fertilizer are as follows:

1.  If weed control:    open drop spreader  1/3rd open (if spreader goes from 0 to 12, set on 4, if from 0 to 10, set on 3/4).

2.  If fertilizer, open drop spreader wide open, open throat as wide as you can get it.