I used to think all of WA was as wet as the Seattle area, but there are areas that are basically desert. If I remember, the SE corner is one of the drier areas. Is that right? Many people tend to set the timers on their sprinklers at the beginning of the season and then forget about them. I test mine at least once a month. Sometimes sprinkler heads get partially or completely clogged or get stuck and spray one area instead of the entire zone they're supposed to cover. One thing that is a little tough to gauge is the true coverage you'll get. I water during the wee hours of the morning (1 AM to 5 AM), but I test during the day. There's better water pressure when I water than when I test, so I may not be adjusting exactly as I should. To get a good test of your watering rates, do the tuna can test. Set some tuna cans around the lawn and run the sprinklers as you normally do. Measure the water in the cans. The goal is about an inch of water a week, preferably all at once (although I think it's tough to keep a lawn in good shape in the desert with once a week watering). If most of the lawn is in good shape, I would hand water the brown spots. Bring the hose to the brown spot, set it on the ground, and let it run at a little more than a trickle, but not so much that it puddles for about 20 minutes to a half hour. Do that about once everyh two weeks. That's a lot better than increasing the water you give the entire lawn. You're right on how easy it is to overwater. Almost everybody in my area has automatic systems. Everything I've read says that the biggest problems faced by Utah lawns is too much water, and I believe it--my next door neighbor waters so much there are dead spots in the lawn, and I have to shut down one of my stations due to overflow from their lawn. If you really want to cut down on watering, you could consider replacing your KBG with wheatgrasses. Western, Streambank and Thickspike are natives and all are rhizomatous (thickspike and streambank are similar except that thickspike prefers sand vs clay for streeambank). Crested wheatgrass is an import. Most crested wheatgrasses are bunchgrasses, but newer varieties (such as roadcrest and ephraim) are rhizomatous. Another drought tolerant grass is sheep fescue (I've seen conflicting reports on whether this is native or imported).

You can spray it with a fungicide, but the grass is already dead. Those are fungal disease spots. This is the main reason why people get rid of their zoysia grass lawns. What you will find is the spot will turn brown for the rest of the season. There is nothing you can do to make it come back any faster. I suppose you could carve out a spot from a different part of the lawn that fits and plug it in. But then I would expect the new piece to die from the same disease. The normal organic approach to fungal disease is to scatter ordinary corn meal at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Give that three weeks and the disease should be gone. That will not help get the new grass to fill in, though.

You definitely did not water too much. A more normal schedule for new sod would be 5-10 minutes but 3x per day for 2-3 weeks or until the roots knit into the soil. Did the installer roll the sod down? I suspect not., and I say that because he rototilled first. Someone who knew about the need for rolling would also know about the issues with rototilling. Before I get ugly with you, why zoysia and not St Augustine? At this point, I assume the grass knit down anyway despite the not rolling and the slightly imperfect water. There are several reasons why the grass might look like that. One is not rolling. Rolling is necessary to ensure the bottom of the sod contacts the top of the soil. Roots won't grow through the air to reach the soil. Another reason is the grass might have been stressed on the pallet. Did the grass sit on the pallet longer than a day before he put it down? But no matter the cause, it will have repaired itself and look normal next April when it comes out of winter dormancy. Zoysia does not fix itself quickly, but some sort of magic happens over the winter. I had some get damaged by fungus in May, and it remained dead looking for the entire season until the following April. It came back very normal looking; however, by that time it had to compete with the bermuda grass that came in for 9 months while the zoysia sat it out. I have seen many zoysia installations in San Antonio do the same thing. Once damaged during the growing season, bermuda comes in and it's all over. You have the advantage of it being late in the year with cooler soils, so the bermuda may not get a foothold on yours. Those other zoysia lawns I saw converted to St Augustine after the first bout with disease. With the shade you have I never would have considered anything but St Augustine, but hang in there and give this grass a good try next season. Here's what to do until the grass stops growing. Watering: You'll have to ease into this with new sod, but it is important. Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall. Mulch mow at the mower's highest setting. This helps to develop deep roots as well as fight off weeds. Fertilizer: I assume you're going organic since you already used the Dillo Dirt. For readers who are not from Austin, Dillo Dirt is Austin's answer to Milorganite. DD is more of a compost product than a baked microbe product. You can use the Dillo Dirt as often as you can afford it. Apply at a rate of 15 pounds per 1,000 square feet. As an alternative you can use corn meal, corn gluten meal, or alfalfa pellets from any feed store. App rate is 15 pounds per 1,000. After the grass stops growing but is still green, make one last fertilizer app. Then do not fertilize again until Washington's Birthday. If you are not going with organics, then skip the Feb fertilizer application. But in either case, fertilize again in late May (Memorial Day is good). The grass should awaken in late March. Spot spray for weeds in mid April.

Wilting is actually not necessarily a demand or request for watering, it's a statement that water is leaving the system faster than it's being absorbed--or that the root systems are not up to supplying water as quickly as the leaf systems are transpiring it. It actually doesn't say anything about the state of moisture in the soil, which can be entirely adequate. Cool-season organisms will typically wilt when out of their temperature comfort ranges rather easily, so grasses would certainly be susceptible. It's not an issue for grass to wilt mid-day in 90-degree weather, any more than it's an issue for most plants to do so. One of my best photos of the garden is in hundred degree weather and the greenery is a bit wilted. The issue would be if the grass remains wilted after sunset when the roots have time to catch up and resupply the blades with water when the blade cools and the biological processing rates slow to something the roots can supply. Furthermore, day-wilting produces hormonal responses that spark root growth as temperatures fall in the soil to where root growth can resume. Constantly supplying water as temperatures cross that point mean that root growth never starts when temperatures are appropriate for said growth. Consistent coddling never produces the deep mat of roots that will support grass (or any plant) against wilting, which means it will continue to wilt in less-harsh weather than more harshly-treated lawns. There's a minor argument for syringing the lawn here, but that's not what we're discussing. That involves a drop of surface leaf temperature due to water contact and evaporative cooling, not a root watering.