Spreader Settings by Product and Spreader Model
A spreader setting is the gate number that meters product out of the hopper. Scotts prints a rotary number and a drop number on its bags. For every other pairing there is no published number, so this tool gives you the target pounds per 1,000 sq ft plus a calibration method that gets you there in one test strip.
Reviewed by James Thornton · Lawn Equipment & Maintenance Expert · 20 Years · August 19, 2026
Dial settings and applicator restrictions from published product label directions; rates from each product's label, with the source shown on every result.
Every spreader setting we can actually source
| Product | Scotts rotary | Scotts drop | Target rate | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scotts Turf Builder Weed & Feed | 3½ | 5 | 2.9 lbs / 1,000 sq ft | Scotts Turf Builder Weed & Feed 3 bag label |
| Scotts Turf Builder Bonus S Southern Weed & Feed | 4¼ | 7¼ | 3.5 lbs / 1,000 sq ft | Scotts Turf Builder Bonus S Southern Weed & Feed₂ directions (SKU 3313B)Scotts sells two Bonus S bags under nearly the same name. The Florida bag (SKU 21030A) calls for 5¼ rotary and 11 drop instead, which is about half again as much gate on the drop scale, so match the number to the exact bag you bought. |
| Scotts Turf Builder Triple Action | See bag label | See bag label | 2.8 lbs / 1,000 sq ft | Printed on the bag; the number varies by bag size and variant |
| Fertilome Centipede Weed & Feed 15-0-15 | See bag label | See bag label | 3.2 lbs / 1,000 sq ft | Printed on the bag; the number varies by bag size and variant |
| Everything else: calibrate. Four published pairings exist, and all four are Scotts numbers off Scotts bags. The rest of the grid is honest math, not guesses. | ||||
How to calibrate a spreader when there is no published setting
Find the right gate setting for any spreader and any bag with one test strip, a bathroom scale, and about fifteen minutes.
Read the target rate off the bag
Every bag prints a rate per 1,000 sq ft somewhere on the back. That number is what you are calibrating toward, and it does not change with your spreader. If your product is in this tool, the result card shows the same number.
Mark a 1,000 sq ft test strip
Twenty feet by fifty feet is the easiest shape to pace out. Pick a flat, boring part of the lawn where a small mistake will not bother you, and mark the corners.
Weigh out exactly the target amount
Put the empty hopper on a bathroom scale, note the weight, then add product until the scale reads that much more. Nothing else goes in the hopper. This is the whole point of the test: you know exactly what went in.
Start low, around a quarter of the gate travel
Open the gate to roughly a quarter of its range. Too little product is a second pass. Too much is a burn you cannot take back, and burned turf takes a month to grow out.
Split the load and walk two perpendicular passes
Spread half the load walking north to south, then the other half walking east to west, at a steady pace you can repeat. Halving and crossing evens out the edges of the throw pattern, which is what stops the green stripes people blame on the fertilizer.
Check what is left and adjust
Product still in the hopper at the end means the gate was too tight, so open it a little. Empty before you finished the strip means it was too wide, so close it a little. Refill to the same weight and run the same strip again until it comes out even.
Write the number on the hopper
Mark the setting on the hopper with a paint pen next to the product name. That is your number for that bag from now on, and it saves you the whole exercise next spring.
Spreader terms, defined
- Broadcast spreader (rotary spreader)
- A broadcast spreader drops granules onto a spinning plate that throws them out in a wide arc to either side of the operator. It covers ground quickly, and its throw is lighter at the edges, so passes have to overlap.
- Drop spreader
- A drop spreader releases granules straight down in a band exactly as wide as its hopper, with no throw past the wheels. It is precise next to beds and driveways, and it needs a wider gate setting than a broadcast spreader to put down the same rate.
- Gate setting
- A gate setting is the dial position that fixes how far the opening under the hopper slides open. It controls how fast product leaves the spreader, and it means nothing on its own until it is paired with a specific bag and a specific spreader.
- Spreader calibration
- Spreader calibration is the process of finding the gate setting that puts a bag's labeled rate onto a measured area. You weigh out a known amount, spread it over a marked test strip, and adjust the gate until the amount and the area come out even.
- Pounds per 1,000 square feet
- Pounds per 1,000 square feet is the application rate printed on a lawn product label. It is the same number on every spreader, which is why it, and not the dial number, is the figure worth aiming at.
Spreader settings, dial numbers, and what to do without one
What spreader setting should I use for Scotts Turf Builder?
Scotts is the one brand in this catalog that prints a dial number on the bag, and it prints exactly two of them.
The two numbers Scotts prints are a broadcast or rotary setting and a drop setting, and they are written for Scotts push spreaders: the EdgeGuard Mini, the EdgeGuard DLX, and the Elite. Turf Builder Weed & Feed 3 goes down at 3½ rotary and 5 drop. Bonus S Southern Weed & Feed goes down at 4¼ rotary and 7¼ drop on the SKU 3313B bag, checked against Scotts' published directions in August 2026.
There is no third number for a handheld. A Scotts Wizz meters on its own dial and Scotts does not print a Wizz setting on these bags, so this tool will not carry a push-spreader number onto it. Some bags go further than silence: the Florida version of Bonus S prints "Do not apply with a hand-held spreader" in its directions, which is a rule rather than a gap, and the tool answers that pairing by saying so.
The plain Turf Builder Lawn Food bags and the Triple Action bags are a different story again. Their printed setting moves around by bag size and by which year's variant you picked up, so the honest answer is the number on the bag in your hand. What does not move is the rate underneath: 2.5 lbs per 1,000 sq ft for Turf Builder Lawn Food, about 2.8 for Triple Action. Hit the rate and the dial number is just the means to an end.
Why doesn't this tool have a number for my spreader?
Because we would have to invent one, and an invented spreader setting has a real cost.
There are exactly four published dial numbers behind this tool, and all four are Scotts numbers off Scotts bags. Agri-Fab, Chapin, EarthWay, and Lesco do not publish a cross-reference that would let anyone convert a Scotts 3½ onto their gates, and neither does Scotts. Plenty of sites print a conversion chart anyway. They are guessing, and the guess is usually wrong in the expensive direction.
So instead of a fake number, this tool hands you the thing the number was only ever a proxy for: the target pounds per 1,000 sq ft off the label, plus a calibration walk that gets any spreader to that target in one test strip. That answer works on a thirty year old drop spreader with a worn gate, which is more than a chart can say.
- Gate opening: the same dial number is a different physical gap on every brand's hopper.
- Granule size and density: Milorganite at 12.8 lbs per 1,000 sq ft and a fine-particle fertilizer at 3.6 flow through the same gap at completely different rates.
- Walking speed: a spreader meters by time, not by distance, so a fast walker at setting 4 puts down less than a slow walker at setting 4.
- Hopper design and impeller shape: these set the width of the throw, which decides how much your passes need to overlap.
Two calibration mistakes that stripe a lawn
The seven steps are above. These are the two places people quietly go wrong inside them.
The first is spreading the whole load in one direction. The edges of a broadcast throw are always lighter than the middle, so a single pass leaves a light seam wherever two passes met. Splitting the load in half and walking the second half at right angles fills those seams in, which is why step five says to do it and why skipping it shows up as green stripes about three weeks later.
The second is walking a pace you will never walk again. A spreader meters by time, not by distance, so the setting you land on is only correct at the speed you found it. A careful calibration shuffle gives you a number that is wrong every time you actually push the thing across the yard. Walk it the way you mow.
Are broadcast and drop spreader settings the same number?
No, and mixing them up is the fastest way to double or halve your rate by accident.
A broadcast or rotary spreader drops product onto a spinning plate that flings it out in a wide arc, several feet to either side. A drop spreader lets it fall straight down in a band exactly as wide as the hopper. Same pounds per 1,000 sq ft, wildly different amount of ground covered per step, so the gate has to open further on the drop.
Scotts shows the gap plainly. Turf Builder Weed & Feed 3 is 3½ on a rotary and 5 on a drop for the identical rate. The Bonus S bag we sourced is 4¼ rotary and 7¼ drop. If you read the rotary number off a bag and dial it into a drop spreader, you will finish the lawn with most of the bag left and a lawn that got roughly half of what it needed.
- Broadcast or rotary: faster, wider, better for large open lawns. Overlap your passes by a few feet to even out the light edges.
- Drop: slower and precise, with no throw onto beds or driveways. Butt the wheel tracks up against each other with no gap, because a missed strip shows up as a green line for weeks.
- Handheld: fine for small yards and touch-ups where the label allows one, and some labels do not. Crank at a steady speed, since output tracks how fast you turn the handle.
What does the number on the spreader dial actually mean?
It sets how far the gate under the hopper opens. That is the whole mechanism.
The dial is a mechanical stop. Turning it up slides the gate further open so more product falls through per second. It has no idea what is in the hopper, how heavy the granules are, or how fast you are walking, which is exactly why a setting is only meaningful when it is paired with a specific bag on a specific spreader.
That also explains why the numbers on different bags look so unrelated. Milorganite goes down at 12.8 lbs per 1,000 sq ft and Scotts Turf Builder Lawn Food at 2.5, a five to one difference in volume. Any dial setting that made sense for one would be badly wrong for the other.
What happens if I set the spreader too high?
Too much is the expensive mistake. Too little is a second lap.
Over-applying granular fertilizer puts down more soluble nitrogen than the grass can take up, and the excess pulls water out of the leaf tissue. You see it within a few days: yellow then brown blades, worst in the strips where your passes overlapped. In summer heat, or on a lawn that was already dry, patches can die outright and need reseeding.
Under-applying is a much friendlier failure. The lawn greens up unevenly, you notice, and you make a second pass. That asymmetry is the whole reason the calibration method says to start the gate low and open it up, rather than starting wide and dialing back.
Frequently asked questions
What setting do I use on a Scotts EdgeGuard Mini?
The EdgeGuard Mini reads on the Scotts rotary scale, so use the broadcast or rotary number printed on your bag. For Scotts Turf Builder Weed & Feed 3 that is 3½, and for the Bonus S Southern Weed & Feed bag we sourced it is 4¼. For a bag that does not print a Scotts number, calibrate on a 1,000 sq ft test strip instead of guessing.
Can I use a Scotts Wizz handheld spreader for weed and feed?
Check your own bag first, because some labels rule it out. Scotts' Florida Bonus S bag prints "Do not apply with a hand-held spreader" in its directions, so there is no correct Wizz setting for it at any dial position. Where a label allows a handheld, you still have to calibrate: bags print rotary and drop numbers, never Wizz numbers, and your crank speed moves the rate as much as the dial does.
Why do two bags of Scotts Bonus S list different spreader settings?
Because they are two different products with nearly the same name. The Southern Weed & Feed₂ bag (SKU 3313B) calls for 4¼ on a Scotts rotary and 7¼ on a Scotts drop. The Florida bag (SKU 21030A) calls for 5¼ rotary and 11 drop, which is about half again as much gate on the drop scale. Both are 17.24 lbs over 5,000 sq ft, so weight will not tell them apart. Read the SKU on the bag you bought.
Is there a spreader settings conversion chart between brands?
Not a trustworthy one. Gate opening, granule size and density, walking speed, and hopper design all differ between brands, so the same number on an EarthWay gate and a Scotts dial meters out different amounts. We do not publish cross-brand conversions because a wrong one costs you a bag of product or a burned lawn. Calibrating on a test strip takes about fifteen minutes and works on any spreader.
How many pounds per 1,000 sq ft should I be spreading?
That number comes off the bag, not off the spreader, and it does not change with the machine you push. Milorganite runs 12.8 lbs per 1,000 sq ft, Scotts Turf Builder Lawn Food runs 2.5, and PGF Complete runs 3.6. Pick your product in the tool above and it shows the rate with the label it came from.
What spreader setting should I use for Milorganite?
We have not sourced a published dial number that pairs Milorganite with a Scotts dial or any other, so the tool does not print one. The part that is published is the rate: 12.8 lbs per 1,000 sq ft. Weigh that out for a measured strip, find the gate position that puts it down evenly, and write the number on your hopper.
Does the spreader setting change with bag size?
It can. Scotts Turf Builder Lawn Food and Triple Action print a setting that moves with bag size and with the year's variant, which is exactly why this tool refuses to publish one number for them and sends you to the bag instead. The rate underneath holds steady, so if the printed setting and the rate disagree, aim at the rate.
Do I have to calibrate again when I switch to a different bag?
Yes. The dial sets how far the gate opens, and nothing else. A bag of Milorganite at 12.8 lbs per 1,000 sq ft and a fine-particle fertilizer at 3.6 flow through that same gap at completely different rates, so a setting you found for one is meaningless for the other. Same product, same bag, next season: your written-down number still holds.