I think I saw through yardtractor's comments, and found them humorous. He hit all the antiquated high spots from back when the only version of organic gardening was Rodale's approach using 100% compost. I would add stinky since a lot of people use manure based compost which was often not completely composted. You would have to go back to pre-2005 to really get into the flame wars between organics and synthetics. Lots of people on lawn forums around the Internet were banned for life. And I agree that a lot of nonsense is repeated as fact on the forums. I prefer to use photos showing results and let the reader decide what to do. For example this photo taken by former Lawn Care forum participant, mrmumbles, shows his zoysia lawn about 30 days after spot treating with alfalfa pellets. You don't have to look too closely to see the improved color, density, and growth provided by a true organic fertilizer (not compost). But back to the OP... Are you in love with that large tree in the middle? If so then I would suggest creating a planting bed around it and fill the area with something that will hide the roots. Go to my member page and look at the trees in my yard. The three trees on the right are surrounded by "cast iron plant" for about 4-6 feet out from the trunk. The one in the back did not have roots at the surface so it was left alone. Whatever you do, if you bring in soil to cover your roots, do not bury any of the trunk of the tree. Leave some of the root flare showing and stop with the soil. Yes you did not use enough seed, or you did not keep it moist everywhere. You did seed at a poor time of year, so if you want this fixed, get ready for late August. That's the time. It will give the new grass plenty of time to develop roots which can resist the summer heat. Also the summer annual weeds are not germinating in August, so your weed pressure diminishes a lot. Sometimes it is expedient to spot spray with chemical herbicides and get on with your lawn life. You will still benefit from having been on an organic fertilizer program and continuing with that afterward. I call it tough love. They used to make a foaming Weed-B-Gone that was amazing. You could leave a spot that looked like shaving cream on individual weeds. There was absolutely no overspray and nothing touched the soil. Don't know why they don't sell it anymore. It would wipe out dandelions in 2 days. In the mean time practice deep and infrequent watering, mulch mowing at a high (highest??) setting, and fertilizing.

Thanks. Good pix. Yes you have a disease. What kind of grass is that? I was expecting a northern grass but it looks like St Augustine. In the first one you can see spots on the blades. This would be gray leaf spot if it is St Augustine. In the rest of the pictures it just looks brown with no spots. That would be take-all patch or take-all root rot. I'm going to send you back out to look more closely at the grass right at the ground. Is it dying from the soil up or from the tips down. Pull up some runners to see what they look like. Black runners obviously is not good. Black spots at the nodes of the runners means still another disease. The problem with disease in the heat is many fungicides will kill the grass or not work at all when applied on hot days. Read the label carefully before you buy anything. When you find out it is too hot to apply a chemical fungicide, there is an organic approach you can try. Ordinary corn meal has been found to cause many diseases to die off. The disease is not killed by the corn meal but by another fungus that is attracted to the corn meal. The application rate is at least 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. You can use corn meal from the grocery store or you can look at your local feed stores (call first) for corn meal in a plain, 50-pound bag. Be sure they are not talking about corn GLUTEN meal. That is a different product. Corn is expensive this year so it might cost as much at $15 per bag (I used to buy it for $3). Corn meal takes three full weeks before you see any improvement. I would hit it with corn meal now and again in 3 weeks. Then evaluate in 6 weeks to see if it is working. If not, you have not lost anything, because you can't use the chemicals in the heat anyway. Plus you will find that corn meal is an organic fertilizer. Your remaining grass should be very deep green in 3-6 weeks.

If you used all the seed in a 50 lb bag on 5000 sq ft, didn't you seed at 10 lb/K? There should be more than sufficient seed. If you used only 40 lb (8 lb/K), you have leftover seed and you could add a little more seed to bare areas. But your coverage looks good to me and there doesn't seem to be a lot of weeds. The grass will thicken up as those little strands turn into clumps. Grass that is sown too thickly can be a problem. It doesn't have good air circulation and is prone to disease. So be careful not to overseed. You likely will not find the products VA Tech was recommending (0-0-50 and 46-0-0) at the big box stores. There are Southern States and Virginia Tractor Supply stores in Leesburg and Manassas and they may have them. Morph is suggesting a soil test from Logan and he could then recommend a course of action for the soil next year. If you can locate 46-0-0, you could use that for your winterizing fertilization later this fall (after grass stops growing and before the ground freezes). For 5000 sq ft, you would use 10 lb. for the whole yard. I don't know if 0-0-50 could go down at the same time then; maybe Morph can advise. That's assuming you can locate the products. Call before you visit.

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