i have had a few ppl tell me that it is st augustine...and ive tried to do my best at comparing it with photos on the internet...it does develop runners but it not like it used to....a couple of years ago it grew so well that i had to mow twice a week at times...exspecially when it was hot and humid....i did a soil test around april and my nitrogen was way low..and i think the phosphourus..was extremly high...the others where pretty neutral..im just wondering that years of pet abuse you know what i mean has caught up to it..thanks

While I hate to copy a url and paste it, I don't mind helping others with the code to fix their posting. Here's your message with links to the images. I tried embedding the images into the message but they are huge. Much faster to link to them. If you want to skip the story, just look at the last picture. I need help finding an organic way to control these! Thanks! Well, I just bought my first house a couple months ago and it turns out the giant headache was included. The lawn was in horrid condition. Prior to buying the house, the well pump was broken and the owners had given up on watering the nice St. Augustine lawn. They also stopped their tru-green service. Ever wonder how a St. Augustine lawn looks when you stop watering it in florida(before the rain comes) and stop using pesticides? Its not pretty. Some of the lawn was salvageable with watering(the well was fixed when I moved in). Bringing the lawn back was a daunting task and I had no idea where to start. I have since found Garden Web and the Oragnic Lawn Care forum. I have started on once section of my lawn, a small corner under the old oak tree. Per suggestions found in this forum, I have top dressed the area with a little less than 1/2" compost, put down 10lb/1,000ft soybean meal, continued watering once a week around 5am, and I continue to mow high. Within the past month, the rain has really picked up. There was three day stretch in which every night around 8pm it rained 1"+. All this water didnt help out my lawn. It quickly developed grey leaf spot that spread to my entire nice green corner section. I have since attacked it with the recommended dose of Actinovate, still awaiting results. There are more probelms. There is a section of this corner that has developed some odd charecteristics. It all started out as a small 1'x1' patch of turf that looked like it had thatch problems. It has since grown into a monster. Here is a close up. The patch of this is now about 6'x8' and its not pretty. I was about to ignore it and assume it was "end stage grey leaf spot" as the fungus was pretty extensive. That was until I got down on my hands and knees and took a closer look It sems something has been muching on my soft green blades. And honestly, what little critter wouldnt want to? So now that the leaf spot will soon be under control (pending Actinovate effectiveness and use of corn meal 10-20lb/1,000ft) How do I figure out who's visiting the all you can eat buffet? I couldnt find any suspects, other than a couple of these guys(spittlebug) So now I ask for everyones help! Where do I start? How do I figure out who has their hand (or multiple hands) in the cookie jar? Update: Well, I went out to take a larger picture so everyone could see the shape/area involved. Something didnt add up so I put in some more 'hands and knees' time. Guess who I found? Take a look below The organic answer you are looking for is called BT worm killer. It works immediately to stop the caterpillars from feeding. It might take four days for them to die but once you stop them from eating, that's all you care about. It is sold by Safer and by Green Light. One application is all you need.

I'm going to ask for another picture taken from 3 inches above a spot that shows both brown grass and green grass. Please take it in the shade like the area between you and the wagon in the second picture above. Generally with watering we talk about deep and infrequent. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. You can time how long it takes your sprinklers to deliver 1 inch by placing some cat food or tuna cans around the yard. Put them in the green spots and the brown spots. The time it takes to fill them is your watering time. My oscillator sprinklers, with my hoses and water pressure, take 8 hours to fill the cans. High flow in-ground systems can fill the cans in 20 minutes. Your time will be different. Infrequent, the other part of the watering mantra, means you wait until the soil dries out from the previous watering. There are many factors in determining when to water but they all simplify down to air temperature. Now that the temps are in the 80s, you can water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 90s water once a week. With temps in the 70s, water once every 3 weeks. When it's cooler, water once a month. This is the single most important key to success with St Augustine. Mowing height is the second important factor. Always mow at your mower's highest setting. Hopefully that is 4 inches rather than 2.5. My neighbor's riding mower only goes up to about 2.5, so I quit using it. I'll mow weeds at that height but I steer around my actual grass (I've moved to a weedy lawn in Bandera). Tall St Augustine grows much deeper and more drought tolerant roots. These two factors account for at least 90% of success with St Aug. Fertilizer is much less important. It counts, but if you're trying to improve your current lawn, watering and mowing are the most important. Nice to see you're using organics. I can save you some money on that if you like. Rather than paying $20 for 40 pounds I buy the raw materials at the feed store for more like $10 for 50 pounds. The ingredients in the Gardenville product are unequaled; however, not always needed. If you used that once every year or two, along with 3 total applications per year, you'd be fine. I fertilize with either corn meal ($8) or alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow, not horse cubes ($12)). The application rate is 15-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet or about the same as the Gardenville fert. You can use these organic products any day of the year, or every day of the year, without any fear of hurting anything. They don't need to be washed in like chemical fertilizers. There is no reason I can think of that the grass over the septic fields would not be growing. The grass over top of the concrete tank might need more water, but the rest should be fine. I would suspect lack of water (or too much water). If you get your water and mowing height adjusted, you should see it turning around. Please post another close up picture so I can look for signs of disease. Rather than writing an essay on disease when you don't need one, I'll wait for the pic.

Root rot. That spot might be low and holding moisture longer than the surrounding area. My go-to product for St Aug fungus is ordinary corn meal. Corn attracts another fungus that consumes the disease fungus. The application rate is 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. You can get corn meal or cracked corn at feed stores. You can get corn flour at grocery stores that cater to the Hispanic community. Price is high this year. It might be higher than $10 at either place. I've seen corn selling for $3 per bag, so it's definitely a commodity with worldwide demand. If you want to use a chemical fungicide I can't help you pick one that works. There are others here with fungicide experience who can help you. This needs to be fixed asap. You have some bermuda in one of the pictures. The bermuda will take advantage of this and move in. Once the St Aug is healthy again, it will overtake the bermuda. Keep the grass mowed at the mower's highest setting and don't water more often than once a week in the summer.