My Grass is dying

I just bought this house from some friends and the yard looked great before winter. Now a big chunk is dead and the rest is thinning. St. Augustine grass. The sprinklers are working fine.

I haven’t need to mow my front yard since last October. 1st world issues.

Wish mine would

The more you water the worse it looks? Fungus. Get a hose end spray fungicide and limit watering.

I really don’t know how much water it is getting. Just moving in this week

Is it safe to go ahead and spread a grub killer and do a fungicide?

You treat for grubs in July.
Hard to think fungus as dry as it’s been.
Have you adjusted the sprinkler heads?
Are the stations getting 30 minutes of watering as they cycle?

Could be Cinch Bugs. Hot weather and watering at night makes it worse. If the grass pulls up easily in clumps, it’s likely cinch bugs. If so, the grass won’t grow back. Resprig or re-sod. I’m an old veteran of the Cinch Bug wars in north Houston.

You need to ask Derek on the TFF.

Oh, no history on grass maintance. I live in SW Irving. We have had a lot of brown thatch fungus that thrives on fertilzer and water. Couple years ago, my yard and several others St Aug looked just like your pics.

As mentioned, pull some grass by hand, if no roots, probably grubs ate the roots. Grubs will become Junebugs shortly, so again as mentioned treat in July. Rake it and start over

If brown grass still has roots and soil is moist, my guess is fungus. Spray it and it will respond and eventually come back.

If it was just lack of water and nutrition, I would think the grass would be thin.

See if you can find a local nursery for advise. Chambers on Shady Grove in Irving helprd me.

Seeing the light green blades it makes me think TARR(Take All Root Root) You actually have quite a few steps you need to do. It’s going to sound complicated but it’s not really. I’ll break it down. If you can get some good close up pics of the blades where the good turf borders the bad that would help. Need to see if you have gray leaf spot. If you have tarr you can do light amounts of fertilizer. If you have GLS you can’t. No GLS run a AMS 13-13-13 at 1lb per 1000 monthly, watered in.

Not a huge fan of granular fungicides, but i know its convenient and easy. Apply Howard Johnsons T-Methyl 2.08% at 4lbs per 1000. Water in. You're not going to find this at the box stores. Order online. I say Hojo's as it's the cheapest I could find online quickly. Cleary's is another. Shop it. Either is golden.

Apply elemental sulfur at a rate of 5lbs 1000. Do it now and again labor day. Martin Brand can be found at most Lowes. Soil microbes will slowly break it down turning it into sulfuric acid which helps fight your high soil Ph. Tiger can be found at Tractor Supply.

You can do a chinch bug test. Get a 5gal bucket and put a 1/4 cup of plain dawn dish soap in it. Make it very soapy. Pour that on a 3x3 area of good turf and see what comes up. Chinch bugs are small like 1/16” but you’ll know it if you see an infestation. Do a google image for pics. (It's probably not the best for Chinch but the best for Grubs and chinch are on the label)

Apply Scotts grub ex now. This will not kill the grubs down in the soil, but will kill new grubs as they try to enter into the soil. It will also protect you if there is an army work outbreak like there was last year. If you want to dig up some 1x1 spots and see if you have a grub issue you can. A grub issue would be like 10 grubs in a 1x1 area. If you have Grubs and or Chinch go with Bio Advance Grub Killer plus which is Dylox. It needs to be watered in immediately after application.

Irrigation. This is really important. Do not water in the afternoon or at night. It doesn’t matter how long you run your zones. What matters is how much they put out. Get 3-4 cheap rain gauges and go zone per zone. Take zone one for example. Put the gauges out in zone one and run that zone for 20 minutes. Check the gauges. If you have say 1/4" that tells you, you need to run that zone for 40 minutes to apply 1/2" of irrigation. Do this for every zone and write it all out. Easy peasy When you run your litigation a good start time would be around 5am. If you apply a product that needs to be watered in quickly like Dylox do so first thing in the morning then run irrigation.

Cut back watering time. You don’t have to water st Augustine everyday! Spray a fungicide. And try to only water early morning, never in the evening or middle of night. That will promote fungus growth! And yes put down grub stuff!

Thank you for the help. I will get requested pics and post here this evening.

Let it die, throw Bermuda grass seed on the yard.

1/2" of water twice a week for a month, and it's over forever. No more watering.

I wish I could use Bermuda. However, it needs direct sunlight and I’m butt deep in big oaks.

You can just let the area alone if you are sure that it is Chinch Bugs. The tops will be gone but the roots are fine. The grass will compost, thus making a better grass for the future.

I have added pictures here of the edge where the grass is dying and of the where i scraped away some grass with no effort.

Looks like cinch bugs to me. The grass won’t recover if it is cinch bugs. A dead spot is truly dead. Re-sprig or put sod down. Hopefully it isn’t chinch bugs.

I used Bayer bio advanced this weekend because I already had it on hand. If I don’t get any action with it coming back I am thinking about seeding with Bermuda as it is in almost a full Sun area. And there is a small patch of bermuda already growing there. Most of the lawn is at Augustine. What is y’all’s opinion on mixed grass in a lawn?

Go with Zeon Zoysia.




I had this installed early spring last year.

Kill em all, except Bermuda.

I have 70 acres of it, including the yard that gets mowed with a ZTR at 2 inches. You think I irrigate?

I would not do that(bermuda seed) With your shade cater to the St Aug. Not a huge fan of Aug, but with a little effort you can rock with it.

How often should we water with the 1/2" per zone?

Right now with this heat and summer setting in I'm doing every 3 and 4 day intervals. I got a 1/2" of rain last Friday, so I ran irrigation Tuesday. I will set it again to run Saturday morning if I get my yard work don't Friday night. If not I'll run it Sunday. Ideally I like a Wednesday and Sunday setting. It kicks on at 5am and done about 7:30am. Do not water late afternoon or evening.

on the bright side, less mowing.
have you seen the price of gas lately ?

That was my first thought. Easy fix: Spectracide and a rotary spreader.

Grubs

As an update, the green grass along the edges of the dead area is still turning yellow after applying a grub and chinch bug killer along with box store fungicide. I also added 13-13-13 fertilizer and have the sprinkler system working right now.

I couldnt find the suggested fungicide at any stores locally that I checked and I also couldnt find sulfur locally. I just ordered both and will apply those in a week or so when they show up.

I am more and more convinced that I have Take All Root Rot, after reading about it, this stuff is pretty brutal.

Any thoughts to people saying to put peat moss over the affected spots?

Depends on several factors one of which, for example, is the head spraying water. Google how to measure your sprinkler heads' outputs... like a rain gauge.

You have a double whammy with this scorching heat.

Why would you want green grass in this heat. Let it do what it does naturally, save water, lakes ain’t getting any fuller.

Lake Travis's , Sometimes Island, by the Dam is probably accessable by walking. Getting pretty low. LLano River at the Slab in Kingsland has almost stopped running. Gonna get serious.

Takes 1/3 of a summer to kill a good yard and three years to get it back. Sod ain't cheap either.

Ever thought about an astroturf lawn?

House sits on half an acre, I am not Jerry Jones, so I think I will pass on the Turf.

I am going to try revitalizing my lawn again this spring.

Had previous fungus and grub activity last year that i fought all summer.

This is my plan, but I have some questions along the way.

1. pre-emergent - Any pre emergent that helps control?
2. lime to control PH - i have a ton of oaks
3. put out Grub X to control grubs/insects (I also have a new mole problem)
4. Put out Fungicide (I plan to do this at least a couple times during spring to get a jump on it)
5. Spread a mixture of sandy loam and dairy mix across the whole lawn. my soil is terrible and lawn is also super unlevel.
6. Either Sprig st augustine of checker board re-sod where needed.

What do you all think of this plan?

I would opt for a good topsoil versus sandy loam. Builder spread some sandy loam at my house in Roanoke and I fought grass burrs the 10 years I lived there.

My thoughts were that st augustine likes sandier soils. I definitely dont want grass burs. The place I buy bulk landscaping from has an enriched topsoil as well...maybe I will try that.

I would be careful introducing any new soil to your lawn for leveling unless it was masonry sand. Lots of good YouTube videos on the subject. Get a soil sample ASAP so you`ll know what your NPK levels are and what fertilizers you need instead of guessing. Are you guessing that your PH is high, or do you know that it is? Changing / chasing your PH can be expensive and it doesn`t happen overnight. Get on a good program of identifying your broadleaf weeds and spray them early when they are easier to kill. I had a St. Augustine lawn for almost 20 years (never used a pre-emergent) and the only weed I ever had a problem with was Dollar Weed. Bermuda grass is another story altogether. St. Augustine doesn`t require nearly as much nitrogen as Bermuda does either, especially if you don`t bag the clippings. Good Luck.

Soil Sample Link ↓↓↓↓↓↓
http://soiltesting.tamu.edu/files/soilwebform.pdf

I guess i have a little more to consider before I start. I appreciate the input.