Just home after 2 weeks to discover our newly laid turf was all brown even after heaps of rain. My husband went to Bunnings for advice and was given grub destroyer. I was absolutley devastated when I found out how toxic the spray was (chrorpyrifos). We have a toddler who put every thing in his mouth. We can't go outside for out least three weeks. Apparently in stays in the soil for at least 8 months!!!! Does anyone have any environmently sound and chemical free ideas to get rid of lawn grubs or even a deterrent rather than put my child at risk. I've been told they usually come back every year but I refuse to use that toxic spray again!!!!!

Well that certainly is West Texas. I lived in Plainview north of Lubbock for awhile and they referred to their location as West Texas. Okay... Despite what the promotional material says, I believe your grass is better adapted to the cooler temps and rich soil of the Panhandle than it is to the heat and rubble soil of El Paso. It will be interesting to see how much water it takes to keep it alive. As for getting it established, squishy seems like an awful lot of moisture. This seems to be the year of the rototiller. Where did you get that advice? Generally rototilling is not a good idea for grass. As the fluffed up soil forms a new structure, it will settle unevenly leaving you with a bumpy surface. Wait a full three years before you level it. It takes that long to form a structure. The tilled in compost adds a complexity factor to the way it ultimately will settle. That compost will "evaporate" completely leaving zero residual volume. Same for the peat moss. What I would have done to prep it would have been to ensure the drainage was good by scraping off surface soil, filling low spots, and then putting down the sod. I'm truly anxious to see how this goes. I can't remember anyone from Texas with Reveille turf writing in, so that must mean they don't have any problems with it.

Sure, I understand. The research from Iowa State on corn gluten meal as an organic preemergent is one of the most scandalous money grabs I've seen. Sure, it's peer reviewed and all that other happy horsecrap. That study is as legit as can be. It's just that the results were blown way out of proportion. Does it work as a preemergent? Well, compared to nothing, maybe. They were able to achieve UP TO 80% success under very specific circumstances using twice as much as they recommend using. Even if you could replicate their findings, is 80% good enough? I don't think so. With ordinary corn meal against St Augustine diseases, I have had 100% success 17 years in a row. That is all I'm saying. I'm not trying to claim my results would stand up at a university, but in my world, it works. That is what these forums are for - sharing what seems to work. If were sharing only university verified processes and materials, the forum would not look anything like this. What about plowing? Are there any double blind, placebo controlled, peer reviewed, randomized studies demonstrating that plowing is better than no-till farming? Or does plowing just appear promising? Here's one more grass related. Core aeration. Golf courses get a hydrophobic fungus on their greens, apparently because they water lightly every day. After the entire green gets the fungus, light watering does not penetrate. It sits in droplets on top of the grass. Core aeration opens up holes for water to penetrate, but a golf course cannot have plugs of soil on their greens. They tried tine aeration. That is largely ineffective. They tried fungicides, and that seems to work, so they tested many different ones. These university studies were all funded by Big Fungicide. Then the Cascade Plus company came in promoting their surfactant as an alternative to fungicide. They paid for the university studies. They were promising, so the fungicide testing began to include Cascade Plus among the candidates. As it turned out, Cascade Plus was equally effective at allowing the water to penetrate the turf as the fungicides. The problem with corn meal is that there is no Big Corn Meal to fund university testing. Even if there was, what is the market for the final product? It seems to work as a disease prevention/killer in the Gulf States on St Augustine. That's not much of a market.

Everything seemly is going well and your cool-season lawn is green and beautiful. Then you have a hot, humid night and the next day the grass shows some yellow patches. The day after, the yellow turns to brown. What’s going on? While seemingly overnight yellowing can be a symptom of a number of different lawn diseases, this particular culprit is most likely a lawn fungus called brown patch. Brown patch thrives when it is hot and humid, and can affect your lawn in late spring, summer, or early fall, depending on what type of cool-season grass you have, where you live, and recent weather conditions. Prolonged wetness from dew, rain, nighttime or evening watering, or poor drainage—or any other activity that keeps grass blades wet during weather in which temperatures are above 80 degrees F during the day and 65 degrees F at night—create ideal conditions for developing this serious fungal disease. In addition, grass that has been over-stimulated with nitrogen fertilizer just before or during hot, humid weather tends to be more susceptible to brown patch. You can try using a granular fungicide for brown patch. Normally this will cure more then 1 fungus. Try not to water at night or in the evenings. The best time to water is in the morning between like 6am and 10am Heres my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZWRXoXKb_2eE2mRYT95d6g check it out for any videos that may assists you in the future. I try and provide lawn care for people on a budget. Good Luck!