You're right, so much water lying on a lawn can cause such browning due to the roots being forced to drink what it inevitably cant use. Its drunk its needs, and more can only cause harm.

Hopefully you can increase the lawn's ability to drain better.
The midwest I'm sure, will pay dearly for the recent flooding that has been there for many weeks now.
Not only lawns will be affected; trees, shrubs, gardens everywhere will pay the price of being in a flood plain.
The soil can only take in so much.....and when it floods, the plants are prevented from taking in oxygen and sunlight.
The garden nurseries, I'm sure, will be the benefactor of such losses.

In southern areas, there are many different types of grasses that may go brown due to their going dormant.
Browning of grass is no stranger to such areas.
If a lawn is comprised of many types...maybe one of them, in small areas, might go dormant where other areas maintain their greeness.
But, have faith, the brown will disappear and green will return.
Do keep up a fertilizing program for the type of grass you have. Soil needs food and if neglected, can creep along to other areas causing harm as it goes.

hgiljr, I am going to guess that you have a bahia lawn. The lime green patches suggest a need for iron more than anything else and this condition occurs in the circumstances you describe.
The best suggestion I can offer for the low spots is to add some topsoil in thin layers to coax the grass to 'grow out' of the low ground. It will be a gradual process and you might want to locate the low spots with turf paint, judiciously applied, so that you can continue to build up these areas over the next several weeks.

I apologize since I did not mention it, I have St. Augustine. So even though my lawn is going through a trauma per say, I should continue to fertilize it? To be honest I have kept up a program of evey 6-7 weeks fertilize using Lesco 24-2-11 the main house and on the easement use Scotts weed and feed. And to be honest the ugly part of the home when I moved in was the easement and now it is the nicest using scotts. It is nice green color, not so much fungus and no brown patching and thick strands of grass. I just might use scotts on the main lawn as well. Let me know if to continue this routine or wait till about august sept for the lawn to recoperate from the hung over... Thanks

You do have to watch overdoing it -- can be just as bad an ignoring the lawn sometimes. I just came across an interesting article about avoiding "stressing" your lawn. Certainly applies here.

Here is a link that might be useful: avoid stressing your lawn

Mow a little lower to get the sun to get to the soil. You can dry out your lot a bit faster so you dont get fungus and other problems. Most people mow St Aug around 3+ inches, drop it down to two for the wet season.

Thats my 2c.

As for mowing, I have my mower set to the highest possible, so it is on number 5. When I usually mow on #4, the lawn looks as if I beat the hell out of it... Will try it though once again. I also mulch mow. Should I bag my clippings for a bit to remove the fungus ones?

Don't know a hoot about Florida everglade-area lawns or St. Augustine grass.
But I DO know that if you have a thick stand of grass in general, and DON'T have a problem with broadleaves, then "weed & feeds" are just a waste of $$$, and certainly aren't doing the ecosystem of the 'glades any good.

You say the lawn looks bad when you mow on "4", which I assume is lower than "5" ?
This could be because you may be mowing your lawn by a set calendar 'DATE' (say, for example, once a week, on Friday) and not by what the lawn actually NEEDS you to do !! ( and that would be to mow NO MORE than 1/3 of the grass blade off, at one given mowing).

Does this mean MORE mowings per year ?

You bet ya !!

( ;

...but you're self-admitedly " a bit obsessed.... ", so raising the bar of standards probably isn't anything new to you !!

Thrown clippings won't normally harbour turf-damaging fungi.
If it's being discharged in WIND ROWS in your hot, humid climate, however, I can see how they could easily become something like instant 'hot' compost piles, shaped like anacondas !

( :

You may want to consider an organic option for your sensitive region's water situation.
You are doing the delicate ecosystem in your general area NO favors by dumping nitrogen derived from the atmosphere, excess potash and phosphorus from underground mines, in places where they were NEVER intended to be released by nature, at such RATES that they are formulated by man !

I live here in S. Ohio..between Cincinnati and Dayton, and I use nothing but corn meal, soybean meal, cottonseed meal, alfalfa meal, seaweed and molasses as lawn foods.

I DO use herbicides...but only in an IPM fashion, which is VERY sparingly, on a spot-treatment basis, only WHERE the weeds are.
I strive to keep my customers'; and my own lawn SO thick...that by-and-large, the lion's share of weeds are 'competed to death' before they even have a chance to GERMINATE and rear their ugly heads.

Markinspringborooh you are right. I mow once a week on Thursdays. So I guess this is a bad program. So the question is, remove 1/3 of the lawn but when is this calculated? Is it calculated when the lawn has grown above a certain height? Not sure exactly how to calculate this. Also regarding organic, I once tried to find cornmeal locally but no local feedshop had this. I searched and searched and no luck. I did try crack corn but that did not help, the lawn lost the green color. So what should I be using?
Also as I said my easement looks better. I have been using there Scotts weed and feed and in the main part of the house I have used Lesco 24-2-11 and to be honest, the easement looks 10 times better. No fungus, very nice green color, nice thick lawn... So what is next? All help appreciated. Thanks

I don't often recommend it, but in your case I would take the mowing height down by half. Let the sun dry the soil thoroughly, even at the expense of the grass for two weeks. Then gradually bring the height back up. And you're going to have to bring soil in, to get some sort of a 'crown' in your lot, so that excess flows off to the sides, as much as possible. And yes, that's a gradual process. But your Florida rains aren't going away anytime soon, so you might as well recognize that drainage is your friend.

hgiljr, "Lesco 24-2-11" applied every 8wk. is a program used by many professional commercial operators with very good results. (I worked with Lesco and it was part of the job to monitor these things.)
I am tempted to rule out a nutrition problem unless there is a soil (chemical) condition that is preventing the uptake of a particular element e.g. iron. The lime green color of patches is often an indicator of this and a foliar application of liquid iron is the usual remedy.
Excessive water, from irrigation and/or rain, coupled with high temperature on St. Augustine can cause fungus diseases like brown patch. A giveaway to ths condition is when you can separate the tufts of grass (crown) easily from the runner; it also feels slimy.
Periodic water-logging might be a feature of the area in which you live. (One landowner lamented that Ockeechobee was the only place where he had bought land by the gallon!). Coping with the situation might be less stressful than trying to cure it.

I had great results for a while using Lesco 24-2-11, but then all went downhill... As said above my easement with Scotts looks 10 times better and mind you this area was full of weeds... I am planning on starting with Organic fertilizer, just trying to see about first spreading some compost but just not sure where to get good quality down here in SFLA. Thanks again