Start by posting a picture or two or three if possible. As the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words".

Yes, pictures would be very helpful. Those symptoms is what I would imagine to be as a result of Rust, but without pictures it would be hard to tell for sure.

There are three primary elements to lawn care. If you do these right you probably won't have to worry about the issues many people are having.

2. Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means at least an hour in every zone, all at once. Infrequently means monthly during the cool months and no more than weekly during the hottest part of summer. If your grass looks dry before the month/week is up, water longer next time. Deep watering grows deep, drought resistant roots. Infrequent watering allows the top layer of soil to dry completely which kills off many shallow rooted weeds.

3. Mulch mow at the highest setting on your mower. Most grasses are the most dense when mowed tall. Bermuda, centipede, and bent grasses are the most dense when mowed at the lowest setting on your mower. Dense grass shades out weeds and uses less water when tall. Dense grass feeds the deep roots you're developing in 1 above.

4. Fertilize regularly. I fertilize 4 times per year using organic fertilizer. Which fertilizer you use is much less important than numbers 1 and 2 above.
   

In addition to that, you can use organic fertilizer any day of the year and not worry about hurting the grass. It is the chemical fertilizers that can burn in the heat.

I am trying to post pictures. Hope this works!

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:107060}}

This makes it easy to see. Thanks for the pictures.
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As for the weeds, that is nutsedge, and Sedgehammer should take care of it.

That discolored/yellow grass looks more like a warm-season grass to me, but I could easily be wrong. That is a dense looking turf, more like zoysia than cool-season grass. Maybe I need glasses. The taller weed growth is either nutsedge or green kyllinga. Look to see if it is a triangular-shaped stem.

What should I do to get my grass green again?? Btw, thanks to the above posters for your advice. Even with giving it a good watering 2x per week the soil is still very dry and the grass feels so dried out like hay. The weather has been very hot and dry here.

First of all, have you contacted the person/people/company that laid/provided the sod to see if they can answer your questions? Do you have any type of warranty for the sod? I'm pressed for time right now, so I'll have to get back to this forum later.

Somebody jump in and help this dude. I'll be back on tonight.

First step, call the sod guy and ask what type of grass he put down. I guess he could have used Zoysia, but that is highly unlikely. The white powdery coating could have been powdery mildew. Do you have a shady lawn? The dark reddish brown stuff, as bassplayer said, was probably rust. It's often said sod can be put down anytime, but all the watering it needs to establish roots makes summer a tough time due to all the fungal problems that go along with constantly wet grass. A lot of those brown/tan areas could be dead, but probably not from rust, maybe from powdery mildew, both tend to be fairly benign, but not always, especially on susceptible turf. You could be suffering from summer patch, another fungal disease. Most sod laid in your area has some KBG as a component. KBG is susceptible to powdery mildew (usually in shadier areas), rust, and summer patch.

I have tried calling the guy who laid the sod down numerous times but he does not return my calls. I have learned quickly that he is very unreliable. I found him on Craigslist where he advertised his landscaping company. Even though he told me verbally that he would maintain the lawn, we did not enter in to a contract. At this point I am thinking about calling a more reputable landscaping company to come take a look at it. Hopefully they can tell me what type of grass it is.

That's too bad, unfortunately anyone can call themselves a landscaper. I am willing to bet it's either all KBG or a KBG/TTTF mix. If he is this unprofessional I bet he gets whatever sod is local, and that wouldn't be zoysia.

tiemco: I definitely agree that in NJ, zoysia is an unlikely selection. The second picture looks oddly familiar to winter-time dormant zoysia. The picture is a little fuzzy to me, but anyway that is why I suggested that. But you are probably right about it being KBG. Well, the condition of the damaged turf is very unfortunate for being so new. I know the OP is highly disappointed.

We found out that the sod is fescue. Any advice??

First, it is possible that the turf is dead. We have to face that fact. Examine the "dead" grass carefully and see if you can see any signs of life such as green stem etc.

Second, in an effort to try to get it to "come back" water will be a key ingredient in the mix. It's not coming back without good, thorough soaking.

Then, in treating the affected area, you could try a fungicide. If the grass doesn't have any signs of life at all, then this may not be worth it to you as fungicides are outrageously expensive. Disarm is rated for use with powdery mildew and rust. You could try that. I would recommend calling an experienced pro with an application license and the right equipment for spraying it. It must be extremely precise. If you do try Disarm, WATER IT IN! Otherwise it will more or less go to waste.

Based off of what you said your problems is, I think there is a chance that fungicide will basically bring it back, but there is always that possibility that it won't, especially without positive ID of the disease.

That is k bluegrass not tttf I'm 100% sure! The farms here in s-nj only grow blue or tttf not a mix.When it looks dark blueish it needs water bad.Water in the morning only.I think you have 2 problems disease and some sod did not take root its to dam HOT! I sodded my backyard last year 3000qft and my water bill was $400-500 for the summer!!! what town you live in? I'm in w berlin

If I understand correctly the grass looked fine for several weeks and suddenly got the various symptoms you described. Is that correct?

You severely over watered for the first month and that is what led to the symptoms. The installer should have told you to water 3x per day for 10 minutes each time for the first 3-4 weeks or until the sod roots knit into to the underlying soil. Then start backing off on watering until you are watering every 5-7 days for about an hour. Even your nutgrass problem could be caused by the overwatering. It is a swamp grass and thrives with too much water.

All the symptoms sound like fungal disease. The blob that looked like dog barf is commonly called dog barf fungus. It happens to be very ugly but it also happens to be harmless. You probably cannot really tell where that spot was several weeks later. The white stuff was likely powdery mildew. The blue areas were symptoms of not enough water but there are fungal diseases which cause the same symptom. The strong temptation is to add more water when that happens, but that is the wrong response. All the water goes to the fungus.

How high/low are you mowing it? The installer should have also told you to mow at 4 inches (mower's highest setting). But this time of year is when you should be skipping mowing and letting the grass get up to 5 or 6 inches to endure the summer heat. Scalping fescue this time of year could be the problem for the large area that is dying. If you are mowing at less than 3 inches, then you cannot blame the installer for much of any of this.

"The blob that looked like dog barf is commonly called dog barf fungus."

hmmm...I'll have to look that one up in the Compendium of Turfgrass Diseases listing.

It doesn't look like I can contact the OP directly, so I am reviving an old post. I wanted to know from Gdierking what solution he found for his yellow grass.

Regards,