Did you get a prolonged period of rain this year?

What is your watering schedule? How often do you water and for how long?

Spring-seeded lawns are often dead by July, so that's not unusual. Fall is the time to seed. Your window for seeding is open, so this needs to be addressed. If you have been watering incorrectly, that will be a clue as to what the issue might be.

Do you know what kind of grass you have?

What kind of grass were you going to seed?

What direction does that arrow point in the second picture? Does it point to the north perchance?

Mud is not a good thing. How long did that last?

Hi, Thanks for the reply!

Well, it's Iowa. So the saying goes, if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes. :) It's been mostly hot and humid all summer, 80+ degrees. I don't know what "prolonged" periods of rain are, but it has been storming a full 8 hours about once or twice a week this past month.

I watered about every other day in the spring at around 5pm until the grass was established, and about the same lushness as the already growing grass (middle of the lawn.) I stopped watering after that since it rains 1-2 times a week.

I have no idea what kind of grass I have. I'm guessing some sort of bluegrass/ryegrass mix from my quick google search. The good grass on the center of the lawn is very dense. I'd like to match that the best I can in the dead spots. Planning on seeding a mix.

The arrow in the second picture points west. The problem started on the east side of my lawn. Weirdly though, peeping through my wooden privacy fence, my neighbors grass (that would be touching my grass in that first picture) is green and looks undamaged.

I have no idea how long the mud lasted. I moved into the house in mid-November, and immediately raked a ton of leaves that had been sitting for months off the lawn and discovered all the mud. After winter, I planted grass and it seemed fine. The grass was already growing (no new seed) in the "starter spot" of the dying grass. But the last picture (North corner of yard) was new grass this year.

Still needing advice! Thanks!

Now that you have mature grass, once the rain stops the proper watering schedule is deep and infrequent. Deep is 1 inch all at one time. Infrequent depends on the temperature. For spring it will be once a month until the temps get into the 70s. Then it changes to once every 3 weeks until the temps get into the 80s. Then it's once every 2 weeks. In the 90s it will be once a week. All this assumes it doesn't rain. If it rains you have to readjust your calendar. I find that a good rain of 1 inch seems to last twice as long as my sprinkler of 1 inch, so watch the grass itself for signs of drying. This watering should keep any diseases from coming back as well as minimize the spring weeds.

Thank you both for your replies. I did not see grubs after rechecking again, so I went ahead and sprayed with Bayer Advanced Fungus Control spray tonight at around 7pm. It was the first time all day that it was under the 85 degree mark on the instructions. I am now crossing my fingers that the rain continues to hold off. It looks like about a 60% chance at 2am, but the percentage keeps dropping. If it does rain, is that enough drying time? And if not, do I reapply the fungicide soon?

Since my lawn is so damaged, I'm guessing I should re-spray the fungicide in a couple weeks anyway as a preventative? Is it okay to do this at the same time as planting new grass seed? I assume corn meal and grass seed is an okay combo also.

Thanks!!

Bayer Advanced is a systemic, so it'll give living grasses 1 month of protection. Rainfall also isn't a problem as the grasses can absorb it via their greenery or roots, and six or seven hours is more than enough dry time.

I don't see any warnings on seeding, so you should be good to seed at any time (fungicides are sometimes used at seeding time to protect against damp-off fungus and other sprouting problems). Reapplication shouldn't be necessary as it killed the fungus on contact, but keep an eye out.

Corn meal and grass seed are completely compatible (the grass seed will actually benefit from the gentle feeding over several months), so no problems there.

So it made it 5.5 hours before it rained, and it's been raining for 10 hours straight. The grass wasn't 100% dry before it rained (humidity was keeping it from drying) but hopefully it's fine.

Thanks for all the advice!

Hey, I just wanted to thank you all for the great advice, and give an update. The fungus seems to be dead. I first raked up all the dead grass I could, which was probably the worst part of this endeavor. I then put some peat moss down. I sprayed all affected areas with "Bayer Advanced Fungus Control" - I did this twice, about 1.5 weeks apart. I then planted the new grass seed, and covered with "Quick Grass Pro - Erosion control mat." This mat is awesome! The grass seed germinated super quickly and seemed to stay wetter longer after watering. The only issue I had with it was, new baby grass grows through it and covers the mat very easily - which is good. However, if you have areas with ANY existing grass, the existing grass tends to grow under the mat instead of up through it. I had to pull the mat up, and throw it away after the grass reached a good length.

I'm definitely pleased with the results. You can see all the new grass is a lighter green color.

It looks much better!

The grass might be genetically a bit lighter, although young grasses don't have the color they will as mature adults. A gentle feeding with Milorganite might deepen the hue a bit, but it's also not exactly what I'd call a problem.

The color will attain its adult hue around the time the grass is a year old, so next fall. I doubt you'll see much difference between the old and the new at that point.