Why is the grass yellow?

thxdts11

last year

Is it fungus, not enough water or too much or what?

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Comments (4)

dchall_san_antonio
last year
I see from the previous post that you have St Augustine. That is always important to mention when you ask a turf question. Also important is where you live. St Augustine thrives from Miami to Sacramento, so your soil and climate are important. So where do you live? And if you live in a metro area, like LA or San Diego, please mention the specific community.

Your picture shows how close this yellow spot is to a concrete driveway or sidewalk. There are three possibilities that come to my mind.

1. Your sprinklers are not tuned up enough to water right to the edge of the grass.

2. Concrete collects heat during the day and releases it at night resulting in a lot more soil moisture evaporation adjacent to the paving. In other words, it needs to be watered more deeply and possibly more frequently right in that area along the concrete.

3. Chinch bugs love the heat from concrete. If you have a chinch bug infestation, that is exactly where it is going to start. You can test for chinch bugs by holding a piece of plain paper in one hand and wiping your other hand across the grass, palm down, so the grass blades flick back up as your hand passes over. The flicking motion will flick the chinch bugs, if any, onto the paper.
thxdts11
Original Author
last year
I live in West Fort Worth, Texas in Tarrant County. That area there I do 10 to 15 minutes 3 times a week. I will check the sprinkler in that area and make sure it's a short throw vs over throwing.
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Fine fescue will also turn brown during "open winters," which are winters without much snow cover, like this past winter. If there is enough protective snow cover, they'll just turn to a lighter shade of green. Paul Tukey in The Organic Lawn Care Manual makes this observation for cool season grasses in general. And I saw it for myself in my backyard this past winter with little snow cover. The fine fescue browned in the latter part of the cold weeks. It looked like the fescue was making a valiant effort and would remain green all season, but near the end of the colder weeks, it started browning--right near the end. Of course, this was a mild winter here, where I think the coldest temp this year was only about 13* F. Usually, it gets down to minus 3 to 6 below zero, but not this unusual year. Makes me wonder if the fescue would have browned earlier had this been a regular winter. But then again, if there had been enough protective snow cover like in a regular winter, it may have stayed green. The variety of the fine fescue is probably Boreal.
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I always have to go look up these grass varieties. Marathon, for those of you who don't know, is TTTF. And for those of you who don't know what means, turf-type tall fescue is a grass that does spread by itself but the progress is measured in terms of ice ages. Basically if you want more grass, you need more seed/sod. I have seen it everywhere in SoCal. It does seem to do surprisingly well even in the very dry climates of the desert. I guess they water the heck out of it. I have also seen it choke, cough, and sputter in even partial shade. It could be that it just won't work in your shade. I am experimenting with a type of zoysia called Shadow Turf in my yard. It is a fairly aggressive form of zoysia. It filled in very quickly after an initial 2-month period where it spent its energy sending out rhizomes instead of green tops. Then suddenly I had it everywhere. My application has much (MUCH) more sun than I anticipated (we removed a tree), so the grass is doing extremely well. I have also seen it in an application ranging from full sun to no sun under an English walnut tree. It looked incredible everywhere except in the no-sun area. There, after two years of trying to get established, it is still trying. At least the grass is winning, just at a much slower pace. The one-inch plug is now 1 square foot of dense grass after 2 seasons. But elsewhere it is very plush, dense, and a very nice color of green. This grass is surprising me. They said it was shade tolerant, but this is more than tolerant. Where in SoCal do you live? I don't need the nearest two intersections but the name of the city/town would help pin you down. For example if you lived in Blythe the suggestions might be different than if you lived in Big Bear or Newport.
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Why is my grass turning yellow?
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Comments (4)
Generally spring is a bad time to seed new grass. For northern grasses late spring is still worse and summer is awful. So you got off to a bad start for summer heat. Where do you live? What do you mean by steady rain? Other than the rain have you watered it? and if so, how often and for how long?
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Why is my grass turning yellow?
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Comments (1)
Probably fungal. Might even be rust but it's tough to say from your pics. Likely a function of the conditions your seeing.
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thxdts11
Original Author
last year
I live in West Fort Worth, Texas in Tarrant County. That area there I do 10 to 15 minutes 3 times a week. I will check the sprinkler in that area and make sure it's a short throw vs over throwing.
dchall_san_antonio
last year
Thanks for the location.

Generally deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Infrequent means once per week with temps in the 90s to 100. If you have had temps higher than 100 and you are not water restricted, then deep water once every 5 days should work better for you all around. Unless you have a very high volume sprinkler system, you are not getting an inch in 10 to 15 minutes. When you get rain, then reset your calendar and pick up watering when the grass looks like it needs it.

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Why is the grass yellow?

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Why is the grass yellow?

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