My grass is drying and dying?
Question:hi , i need hepl and advice, how come that my grass is turning brown and dying ? since i watered them in the morning and afternoon? i understand the heat and these portions are not in a shady area unlike my others. but watering them a lot makes them still dry and dying, please tell me what to do, and some portions of it are completely bald, what sould i do with that portion, im working hard for my yard but this area is not satisfying me, please help me, God bless you.
Answers:
There are things like sever soil compaction and excess thatch that can cause some of what you are describing, but the amount of watering you are doing should have showed some affect. I suspect that you may have some diseased areas in your lawn.
The thre diseases that I suspect are Rhizoctonia Brown Patch,Summer Patch & Helminthosporium Leaf Spot. Your watering in the afternoon can be helping to spread these diseases if your grass stays wet through the evening. So the first thing that you need to do is stop watering late in the day or in the evening. Wet grass at nigh encourages fungal growth.
Rhizoctonia Brown Patch
This is a soil borne fungus. In occurs in soils all over the world and affects all grasses. It produces large brown patches in your lawn. It is common in highly fertilized turfgrass lawns, during extended periods of hot moist (you are adding the moisture with double watering and afternoon watering) overcast weather when the temp is over 60 degrees F at night and leaf surfaces are covered with water at night. On a 3" long Kentucky Bluegrass (KBG) lawn, rough circular to irregular patches appear as light brown, matted down, and up to 2 feet wide. The patches sometime develop green centers. The diseased patches appear sunken down. In sever cases, the turf is thinned or killed. To control - avoid excess nitrogen, improve air flow to the lawn (prune trees and shrubs), & collect your grass clippings. Preventative fungicides are available and may be needed in sever cases.
Summer Patch
Summer patch is a serious, complex disease that affects intensely maintained KBG lawns. This is the disease that wiped out my fantastic KGB lawn (and it was intensely maintained). Summer Patch occurs when hot sunny days are followed by hot, wet periods (your watering practices). This disease can become sever when KBG is under stress do to hot, dry weather of summer (entering dormancy). The stressful conditions that trigger the disease are: prolonged periods of high humidity and warm/hot weather, moisture & heat stress (bingo on this one), excessive watering (another hit), close mowing (what is your mowing height?), thatch build-up (I'll bet you have excessive thatch as well), high soil pH (I did) or very low soil pH, unbalanced fertilizer applications, soil compaction (I'll bet you have this as well), and nematodes. It starts with scattered light green patches 2-6" in diameter in the hot weather. These patches will enlarge and rapidly fade to a dull reddish brown, then tan, then light straw color. They become elongated streaks, crescents, or rough circles 1-3 feet in diameter. Within the areas of dead or stunted grass there can be green, healthy centers. The dead lawn is typically invaded with weeds. Control may require daily watering in the mornings only. Over seed with disease resistant strains of KBG and other types of grasses. Practice good cultural practices like proper cutting height, reasonable fertilizer programs, aeration, dethatching, etc.
Helminthosporium Leaf Spot
Occurs on KBG in periods of dry weather followed by wet weather (over watering). Postemergencent herbicides can cause more sever damage. Once this disease is established in your lawn, you will always have it & its potential damage.
Leaf spots will appear on early spring to fall. Crown root rots usually appear as the weather warms up. Infected areas have a general brown under-cast. The turf is thin & weak; it has a drought damaged appearance or may die in round to irregular spots that enlarge in summer. The turf often times wilts during midday, even when moisture is adequate. Entire stands of turf can be killed with this disease.
Remove your clippings to remove spores & prevent further infestation. Overseed in fall with disease resistant cultivars. Sodded lawns can be susceptible because sod turfgrass is raised for sod growing characteristics, not necessarily the best disease resistance. Use a fertilizer with a high K (potassium) ratio to help boost a turfs disease resistance. Fungicides can be effective, but you will need to hire a licensed applicator to apply these fungicides. Control is impossible after late spring/early summer. Spray next season.
Well I hope this helps. If not, let me know and we can go into other possibilities.
Well you do not say where you are and how serious your drought is. Sprinkling will barely keep a lawn alive. Deep rains are needed to make them really healthy.
In central and really all of Florida the drought this spring has been bad (as usual). We are just now starting to get the daily rains. I have notice big sections of lawns just dying off rather quickly, even VERY well maintained lawns. So you are not alone, where ever you are.
We are experienceing a big drought here in Australia - the worst for over 100 years.
As a result people are getting rid of their lawns. A carryover from England when people thought that a nice green lawn was great. Not anymore. With no water we are using pavers to 'fill in' any dead lawns. Or making new gardens over the dead lawn & planting out natives. Or making new pathways & using bought stepping blocks & filling in around them with pebbles.
For you, if you don't like the above answers then you could just give up with the sections that won't grow grass in your yard. In those sections you could put large pots with plants in them.
That would solve your bare patches problem but give a new look to your yard. Less stress for you. Save water too.
don't water in the heat of the day!! before sun- up and after sun down is the best time to water
with this drought all you can do is add water and pray for rain.once a lawn gets so hot and dry it will not go dormant, it will die ! so all you can do is add as much water as you can until they ban watering. good luck, you will end up reseeding the bare spots this fall sorry and good luck !
There are a lot of things that could be causing this. First, when is the last time it was aerated? If it hasn't been done for awhile, it could be that the ground has become so compancted that water can't saturate the ground and get to the grass roots.
As far as products that you might use, Revive is one of the best.
More Related Questions & Answers...