# Lawn despair



## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Alright guys, sorry to be dramatic but my lawn is in free fall right now and I don't know why.

My goal this summer was to keep it out of dormancy by keeping close track of (measuring)rainfall and supplementing with manual watering to maintain 0.5" every 2-3 days, mowing every 2-3 days, and doing the fall N blitz. All was going fairly well until the last couple weeks. Every day I find my lawn thinner and less green and I'd really like to put the brakes on.

It looks like lack of water, right? Should I increase watering? More frequent? Deeper? Both?

Could it be something other than water? How do I diagnose this?


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## Babameca (Jul 29, 2019)

@davegravy Check rapidly for grubs, which I don't think will be the problem (there is no visible pattern),
when do you water. To me, is the opposite, too much water. Before it started turning brown, did you your lawn turn very dark green to a grey hue color? If not this is not lack of water.
Look for signs of fungus, which, to me, is the most probable issue.


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## Babameca (Jul 29, 2019)

@davegravy Check rapidly for grubs, which I don't think will be the problem (there is no visible pattern),
when do you water. To me, is the opposite, too much water. Before it started turning brown, did you your lawn turn very dark green to a grey hue color? If not this is not lack of water.
Look for signs of fungus, which, to me, is the most probable issue.


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## SNOWBOB11 (Aug 31, 2017)

@davegravy I have three thoughts as to what the issue could be. One is that it could just be the normal shedding that the lawn goes through at this time of year and it will turn back greener as the temperatures continue to fall.

Two is that there is a fungal issue that your dealing with. It's difficult to tell from the pictures but do you see any lesions on the grass blades?

Three and I think this might be your answer is that you have a lot more fine fescue. FF doesn't do as well in full sun as your backyard looks like it gets. It also isn't as incline to like high nitrogen. The thinner bladed FF might be burning up and it's leaving you with the brown haze.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

SNOWBOB11 said:


> @davegravy I have three thoughts as to what the issue could be. One is that it could just be the normal shedding that the lawn goes through at this time of year and it will turn back greener as the temperatures continue to fall.
> 
> Two is that there is a fungal issue that your dealing with. It's difficult to tell from the pictures but do you see any lesions on the grass blades?
> 
> Three and I think this might be your answer is that you have a lot more fine fescue. FF doesn't do as well in full sun as your backyard looks like it gets. It also isn't as incline to like high nitrogen. The thinner bladed FF might be burning up and it's leaving you with the brown haze.


Thanks! This does happen reliably every year, but I just assumed it was due to my lackadaisical watering. It does seem like the coarser bladed grass (KBG?) is doing fine. A few spots here and there but it doesn't seem there's a widespread fungus.: the yellow matter is yellow root to tip, not splotchy. If it's shedding it's happening much more severely to me than any neighbouring lawns (who are far less hands-on with their lawns).

So I did a bit of reading on FF and theory #3 adds up. FF doesn't need much water but it doesn't like the heat. It will go into dormancy at the slightest stress (heat, herbicide, etc) but has an amazing ability to survive and continue growing once the threat has passed, which explains why my lawn always seems lush and full in the spring and fall.

I'm not sure how my lawn ended up with so much of the stuff when none of the neighboring properties look anything like this. Off I go to research how to rid myself of the stuff, preferably without needing a full reno. I have a small 10x10 section I need to overseed, maybe I'll test out a FF-free seed mix and see how it fares next summer compared to the rest of my lawn.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

...though I just peeked at both my neighbours and they also have lots of FF, but no die off. Maybe it's just the specific cultivar that I have?


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I think closer pictures might help. In the second images I see spots on the green leaves, but it is too hard to id between brown patch and leaf spot.

What time of the day are you watering? 0.5in every 2 days seems like too much. I'm at 0.5in every 4days if no rain and I'm a few miles south.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

@g-man

I see what you're talking about.

I generally water in the AM. On one occasion I had to rush to water in the PM and started at the first sprinkler position around 4:30pm, finishing the last position around 6:30. Pushing it yeah, but thought it would be ok. We have had one or two late afternoon/evening rain showers.

I'll grab some close-up pics tomorrow.


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## gregfromohio (Aug 14, 2019)

I'm not an expert by a long shot, but in the first and third pics it looks like maybe a blade sharpening is due? I personally like the survival of the fittest mantra. If the grass can't handle the heat, I don't want it. Make sure you let us know what you find out.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

gregfromohio said:


> I'm not an expert by a long shot, but in the first and third pics it looks like maybe a blade sharpening is due? I personally like the survival of the fittest mantra. If the grass can't handle the heat, I don't want it. Make sure you let us know what you find out.


Yeah I did just sharpen it, but maybe not well enough. I'll give it some more filing.

Survival of the fittest is fine and all, but this grass comes back every year, it just looks like crap in August and Sept


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## Babameca (Jul 29, 2019)

@davegravy Are sure it is not Poa...I know I used the scary word, but... Writing off options is a good start.


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

davegravy said:


> So I did a bit of reading on FF and theory #3 adds up. FF doesn't need much water but it doesn't like the heat. It will go into dormancy at the slightest stress (heat, herbicide, etc) but has an amazing ability to survive and continue growing once the threat has passed, which explains why my lawn always seems lush and full in the spring and fall.


Yup, looks like you've got moderate levels of dormancy going on. It just happens in the heat this time of year, even though you're watering enough. Especially with Fine Fescue in full sun. Just one of those things. You can't really avoid it.

Maybe your neighbors have more shade in their yards, preventing their lawns from going as brown.

You can't really get rid of the FF, but if you fertilize for the other grass (3 lbs N per year) they will be more vigorous. Also, you can try dethatching and overseeding with KBG to thin it out, but your mileage may very...a lot of FF will probably still come back and not get pulled out.

You may also have just enough disease going on to add to the brown...but not enough to be concerned about. There also could be soil issues, or sub-surface rocks.

By the way, does that red shack with the black door lead to a special secret underground location? That's usually what those things are for. Why do you have one in your yard?


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Babameca said:


> @davegravy Are sure it is not Poa...I know I used the scary word, but... Writing off options is a good start.


I'm pretty sure it's not. In the spring my lawn is pretty evenly coloured, none of that light green stuff.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Green said:


> Yup, looks like you've got moderate levels of dormancy going on. It just happens in the heat this time of year, even though you're watering enough. Especially with Fine Fescue in full sun. Just one of those things. You can't really avoid it.
> 
> Maybe your neighbors have more shade in their yards, preventing their lawns from going as brown.
> 
> You can't really get rid of the FF, but if you fertilize for the other grass (3 lbs N per year) they will be more vigorous. Also, you can try dethatching and overseeding with KBG to thin it out, but your mileage may very...a lot of FF will probably still come back and not get pulled out.


What about with a full reno? I've read about it surviving glyphosate but what about a good long dose of solarization?



Green said:


> By the way, does that red shack with the black door lead to a special secret underground location? That's usually what those things are for. Why do you have one in your yard?


It leads to the secret lawn munitions stash :lol: Need a good hideout with the Ministry snooping around.


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## SNOWBOB11 (Aug 31, 2017)

FF won't survive glyphosate if it's actively growing. So you want to make sure it's not dormant if you were renovating.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

SNOWBOB11 said:


> FF won't survive glyphosate if it's actively growing. So you want to make sure it's not dormant if you were renovating.


Well there's the rub, it's dormant this time of year when you'd normally reno. I'd have to glypho in the spring and try to spring seed (yuck) or have a mud patch all summer and seed in fall. Fun.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Well buddy, we're in the same boat. I am convinced it's the fine fescue in my lawn, it's so freaking sensitive I hate it. The worst part is most people don't have a majority FF lawn, so we're kinda on a lonely island together with minimum resources.

I have found too much N (like more than 2 lbs) my FF pouts. Too much heat it dies off. Too much water, fungus and more die off. Not enough water, heat stress even more die off. Too much sun, guess what wahhh more death. People say KBG makes a lot of thatch, but this old FF makes enough hay I could have a small farm. Mowing too high? Thin out and die. Mowing too low? Die. Want a nice FF lawn? Do everything perfect and be buried under trees lol.

Seriously though every year I get melting out, and I assume because there is so much FF bunched together, and it's mostly old varieties. My lawn looks like yours every summer, and then all the sudden September comes and the lawn looks great again. This year was no exception no matter what I tried (I loaded up on iron, humic and kelp, and my diy & D-Thatch). Last year I top dressed with maneure, and was using acti-sol chicken byproduct for fert.

My conclusion is the only fix is new varieties. I'm doing a proper overseed this weekend with prg and kbg to see if that starts to help (and it's a good test to see if I'm prepared for a full reno one day). Soil tests give you some more clarity (pH, do you have enough OM, p and k reserves), but I really think it's the fescue.

This was me during the heatwave end of last week:


This was me 2 weeks ago:


This was me end of June:


Hopefully this helps you feel like you're not alone anyways, I know I feel better haha. I'll start up a journal for the overseed if you want to see if it helped.


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## SNOWBOB11 (Aug 31, 2017)

davegravy said:


> SNOWBOB11 said:
> 
> 
> > FF won't survive glyphosate if it's actively growing. So you want to make sure it's not dormant if you were renovating.
> ...


FF isn't really a big issue to get rid of with glyphosate when renovating. You'll want to get your first app of gly down end of June early July anyways so the FF should not be dormant yet.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

@Kaba Your lawn looks very familiar indeed! That said I'd trade lawns with you, it's nowhere near as stressed as mine :lol:

I find if I mow too long it all flops over and gets matted. Looks like an unkempt dog or a really unfortunate combover. I agree, I just hate it.

Bad news for you is that I've done several major overseeds in the last 5 years and it hasn't made a lick of difference that I can tell. To be fair I haven't known what I was doing with my overseeding - I was throwing down Scotts or whatever said "full sun" on the packaging. I checked out the garden store near my place today and every bag except the KBG-only bag had like 30+ % creeping red fescue in it. I believe CRF falls under the FF category, so either I've just been adding more of the same garbage all these years or the FF that came with the house is out-competing all the new seed. It's as though its self-protection mechanisms are so effective nothing can kill it. I never thought I'd think of my whole lawn as a weed but there you go.

In case I miss it, if you think of it send me a PM or @mention me when you post about your overseed - need whatever intel I can get on this mess


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Ya I am not sure how my overseed is going to go, many people on here have tried to overseed kbg into FF and it failed. But I really just want to try to do something, and my lawn is surprisingly thin so there is room. Next spring im going to start adding kbg plugs with my ProPlugger, was hoping to this fall but am going to run out of time.

Site One in Burlington had a 60/40 mix bag of spearseeds kbg/prg (its an improved variety of kbg that sounds like is germinates like Jumpstart with some added advantages) so who knows what will happen!

My front definitely gets a lot more shade than yours which helps a ton you can't see but there are two very large honey locust plus the crabapple and my front is east-facing. The FF near the sidewalk on my lot is a lot greener and healthier looking than the rest of mine due to way more shade per day in that area.

But just keep at it, keep working on getting your soil right with the extras like humic and kelp. Even if you full reno in the near future, all the work on getting the soil healthy will carry forward and will not be a waste.

Also, I do not convinced the fall N blitz will help our fescue lawns out. It dramatically helps kbg spread, and prg thicken, but FF only likes a couple lbs of N per year (like literally 2 from everything I read) and unless you have enough creeping red fescue or chewing fescue, I can't see it thicken up (those are slow to spread anyways). But that is just my guess, smarter people here may be able to give more insight into N blitz with FF.

Either way I would expect your lawn to bounce back nicely in a few weeks. The heat should be breaking tomorrow thank goodness!


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Found these this morning.

Confirms I've been over watering?


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## Sinclair (Jul 25, 2017)

I have mushrooms pop up in my lawn. It doesn't absolutely indicate over watering, it just means you have a food source and at least adequate moisture.

Mine are growing up over dead tree roots from the tree that was cut down 2 years ago.

I would stop with extra water right now though. Weather is cooling off and there's rain coming back into the forecast.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Mushrooms are a hint that overwatering could be happening, but not a definitive answer. Best bet is to try and probe the soil to see. I would imagine if you're doing 0.5" every 2 or 3 days, you're fully saturated.

Now is a safe time to experiment with stopping watering, cooler temps look like they're here finally, and we have had so much rain you can let it dry out for a week or so without risk of jumping back into true dormancy.

If it was me I'd stop watering and just observe what your lawn (and soil) tells you. I stopped watering last weekend and the grass is looking a little happier oddly. I'd probably be cautious and hold off applying more urea if you stopped watering though.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Yes what @Sinclair said!


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Bouncing back nicely. Haven't watered until today.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

That looks great!! What a quick recovery good work!!

I went the opposite way hahah. I'm working on a journal so you can see how it goes.

Keep posting pics I'm interested to see it bounce back, I bet it's going to look super great mid-September and on.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

@Kaba Looking good, I hope it pans out for you!

After a fresh mow I'm not sure there's actually been much improvement here.



I put the brakes on my fall N blitz, figuring I should wait till the grass is out of dormancy before I apply N. I was hoping the cooler weather we've had would bring it out of dormancy but the grass is just not waking up. I've also been probing my soil a bunch and moisture levels seem reasonable. Really at a loss here.

I was going to trying to let it dry out in case is is fungal but if the actual culprit is dehydration then I'm worried further dehydrating it is going to take it from dormancy to death. Also it's overcast and rainy today. Just did a grub check, nothing. Did a pull test, the grass is firmly in there in most places.

Roots seem kind of shallow


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## Sinclair (Jul 25, 2017)

Your grass isn't going to die of dehydration. Most lawns around Toronto look like this right now. Yours is actually in better shape than most.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Sinclair said:


> Your grass isn't going to die of dehydration. Most lawns around Toronto look like this right now. Yours is actually in better shape than most.


Thanks for the words of encouragement 

I guess I'm trying to push myself to another "tier" of lawn - trying to learn from this and figure out how to prevent it from recurring each year the way it has since I bought this place.


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## Sinclair (Jul 25, 2017)

I think if you were to dethatch, aerate, and drop some PRG seed this weekend, you'd be amazed what 6 weeks can do.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Sinclair said:


> I think if you were to dethatch, aerate, and drop some PRG seed this weekend, you'd be amazed what 6 weeks can do.


Thanks, yeah I'm starting to regret applying prodiamine. I did a big overseed last fall (although just a box store grass seed mix) hoping I could keep it green through the summer and this fall but here we are again :roll:


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## Harts (May 14, 2018)

^ +1 I like the idea of dethatching. You have a lot of dead material in there that might be preventing water from getting into the root zone. Getting rid of that material will thin it out and dropping PRG will give you quick germination. You will notice a huge difference by the beginning of October.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Harts said:


> ^ +1 I like the idea of dethatching. You have a lot of dead material in there that might be preventing water from getting into the root zone. Getting rid of that material will thin it out and dropping PRG will give you quick germination. You will notice a huge difference by the beginning of October.


Unfortunately not an option since I put down prodiamine a few weeks back. What about dethatching and then blitzing with N for KBG fill-in?


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## Sinclair (Jul 25, 2017)

That will work.

I'm holding the N until next week when the temps back off.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Don't give up! I would shut off the watering.

You may be killing the lawn with kindness as they say. We got recieved a ton of rain the past 4 weeks. In Burlington we got like 4 inches of rain in the past 2 weeks.

This is my rain tracker:


Your grass is nice and thick, just beat up from the summer heat. You can use a leaf rake to gently pull out the dead, can give it some room to breathe.

Let it dry out for the next 7 to 10 days, it won't re-enter dormancy cool weather is here. Keep holding off N as they say.

@Sinclair is correct, I'm sure this is basically summer shed as they say of the FF. Dethatching and or aerating will clean you up. Overseeding in PRG will help get some improved varieties in there and may help with less dieoff (although PRG doesn't really love heat either, but it's much better than old FF).

The reason the lawn is brown is because there is dead stuff sitting in with the healthy green. To make the lawn green again just need to pull out the dead, I doubt you are getting more dieoff at this point.

There is some signs of minor fungus, but I wouldn't be worried about that. All the dead grass and moisture is probably the reason it's still kicking around.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Also, I actually see a decent amount of boat-shaped tips in your photos. You probably have a good amount of kbg in there that will self heal and spread.

What did you seed with, even some scotts bags have annual ryegrass mixed in which is awful and can die out fast. There is of course the other consideration there may be poa causing the brown, but I don't think so.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

davegravy said:


> Unfortunately not an option since I put down prodiamine a few weeks back. What about dethatching and then blitzing with N for KBG fill-in?


If you dethatch and aerate you will probably break your pre-m barrier.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Kaba said:


> davegravy said:
> 
> 
> > Unfortunately not an option since I put down prodiamine a few weeks back. What about dethatching and then blitzing with N for KBG fill-in?
> ...


I was thinking I'd skip aerating and just power rake without being too aggressive about it. @g-man in another thread seemed to think it was ok, but sounds like there may be no consensus there.

Regarding your rain plot, rainfall in this part of Ontario seems to be very localized - there's no way I've had 4 inches in 2 weeks, more like 0.5". My buddy a 20min drive away has had more than 4".

I'm pulling soil cores now every few days to keep a close eye on the moisture levels (my front yard was dry as a bone a couple days ago). Strangely the one side of my backyard seems to dry out much quicker than the other, my only guess is it's due to a bit of late afternoon shade that the wetter side gets since my watering is even. Got pretty good saturation right now and today is overcast and rainy, so yeah I'm going to back off.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

I think it's concensus that aeration breaks the barrier. That crazy with your lack of rain!

The stuff that is now dead, isn't coming back to life so as long as the rest of your grass is staying green you're good for now. Last fall I hand raked all my dead out as opposed to power rake to dethatch and it ended up a really nice green after.

Do you have sand in that area? How old is your house?


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Kaba said:


> I think it's concensus that aeration breaks the barrier. That crazy with your lack of rain!
> 
> The stuff that is now dead, isn't coming back to life so as long as the rest of your grass is staying green you're good for now. Last fall I hand raked all my dead out as opposed to power rake to dethatch and it ended up a really nice green after.
> 
> Do you have sand in that area? How old is your house?


Here's what I overseeded with last fall :



And I've done similar overseeds every other fall for about 8 years i'd wager, though I haven't been anywhere near as attentive through the summer as I have this year.

House is 1963 I believe, soil seems very sandy though I haven't had it tested yet.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Hmmm you must have some decent varieties, and spearseeds are respectable quality. If you have sandy soil (especially if they graded areas with it) that could cause nutrients and water to just leave.

On the flipside you may have a ton of dead/debris and the water is running off and not making it down and that's why your cores are dry despite the watering efforts.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Like kaba said, aerating should break the barrier if you want to overseed.

The photo 25aug looked good. Then it looks bad. But then you stated something important, you stopped watering and barely had rain. If you applied nitrogen, you also need to ensure the lawn gets water too.

What was the mow from (3in?) and to (2in?)?

Like kaba said, you have kbg there and we saw how to green up on 26aug. Water it and continue the N. If you want, remove some of the dead stuff too.


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## Harts (May 14, 2018)

@Kaba I'm just east of you at Ninth Line and Eglinton, and I've had nowhere near 4 inches. Every time it has rained, Burlington and Oakville have been hit significantly harder than where I am. I remember driving home a few weeks ago, coming down the 407 from the 401 and seeing black black rain clouds over in your direction. Even my office at 401 and Winston Churchill was black. I get home and it's sunny skies. Not a single drop.


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## Harts (May 14, 2018)

@davegravy there are differing opinions about what will break you pre-em barrier. But you have a decision to make....do you want to live with no weeds (which are pretty much done for the season with the cooler temps minus some potential poa A) and a brown lawn, or do you want to thicken your lawn up heading into next Spring and live with "potentially" breaking some or all of your pre-em?

I would be inclined to power rake.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

As we investigate more into this, and the more pondering I do, I retract my thoughts that you may be overwatering based on well the lack of rain you have had.

Let me know if this is an accurate summary:

Back to basics the facts are as such:
-Your lawn was slow responding to urea
-You are pulling soil plugs that aren't very moist or deep
-You have added a lot of newer cultivars to your lawn and have kbg present
-watering doesn't seem to make your lawn respond much
-not watering makes your lawn look worse
-you have a ton of dead grass and some small amounts of fungus present
-your roots do not look very deep

Based on this your "thatch layer" of dead stuff must be a big factor here. Your lawn seems super stressed even though you have been babying it.

The key here is you stopped watering for a couple of days and had no significant rainfall and it went downhill fast.

You may not be getting N down into the soil (or at least not before it volatilizes) and your watering appears to ineffective. I have to imagine you are accurate on how much water your putting down from the gauges in your pics, so the water must be running off with the fert.

I think you have to try to get rid of your lawn debris as your next step to try and figure out what's wrong. Also, I don't recall do you have a soil test? There could be more issues at play.

A possible path forward is a hand rake or power rake and see what comes up and how much. I would then really soak the lawn. Pay attention if there is runoff or ponding. You may need to cycle. But I would soak the lawn til you can get a screwdriver or probe over 6" deep easy. Stop the water after that for a few days and than water in 0.5lbs urea (0.25N) or maybe even less weekly, and hitting the lawn once and a while with a real deep soaking.

I think my goal here is, if I'm understanding correctly, to get water deeper, and I think your dead stuff is preventing you from doing so.

You can also apply some other things to try and help, after the dethatch you can add some blackstrap Molasses and N (your urea) together to try and stimulate some breakdown of anything still buried there. You can add baby shampoo if your soil surface is not allowing water to penatrate.

What do you guys think?


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Kaba said:


> As we investigate more into this, and the more pondering I do, I retract my thoughts that you may be overwatering based on well the lack of rain you have had.
> 
> Let me know if this is an accurate summary:
> 
> ...


Thanks yes that all sounds accurate. I already know from using my thatch rake on a 2' square section that there's a ton of debris, I'm assuming a result from spring and early summer when I was repeatedly cutting my overgrown lawn without bagging (thanks to TLF I now know better).

I ordered the Sun Joe off Amazon and it should be here Friday. I'll use the "dethatcher" mode (hopefully will be less damaging to my prodiamine layer than "scarifier" mode), followed by a Urea application and see how it looks when I get back from my long weekend trip.

I appreciate the help everyone!


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Don't forget the most important step (in my opinion) is the deep shot of watering after dethatch, want those roots chasing down a bit deeper, and letting it dry up from a couple days, than more water at start of urea apps.

I found this to be a great crash course on the sun joe:

https://youtu.be/BnOrrtLEX7w


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## Chris LI (Oct 26, 2018)

davegravy said:


> Kaba said:
> 
> 
> > As we investigate more into this, and the more pondering I do, I retract my thoughts that you may be overwatering based on well the lack of rain you have had.
> ...


All great ideas. I'm using all of these products (and kelp) with success. I have one suggestion that I didn't see mentioned (or missed it). While you're waiting for the Sun Joe to arrive, maybe dissolve some urea for a foliar app, to get things started.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Wow the Sun Joe pulled a TON of litter out.



I used it on +10 with the tines (not scarifier), and was pretty surprised what it pulled out. I've used a commercial power rake before but don't remember it being this aggressive.

They need a +15 setting because in places (mostly areas with higher % fine fescue) it pulled out too much:




Think this will fill in with the N blitz or I'll need to overseed?
In most places it worked better:


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## Sinclair (Jul 25, 2017)

@davegravy there's no such thing as pulling out "too much" fine fescue, in my opinion. 

The really bare spots could use seeding. The rest just need nitrogen, water, sunlight and time.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

It really depends on those bare spots, in June I scalped an area or two like that, and they managed to grow back even in the heat with no watering in one case, you probably didn't kill the plant, just ripped off all its hair, but no harm in throwing some seed down as insurance still early enough in the season because who knows.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Kaba said:


> It really depends on those bare spots, in June I scalped an area or two like that, and they managed to grow back even in the heat with no watering in one case, you probably didn't kill the plant, just ripped off all its hair, but no harm in throwing some seed down as insurance still early enough in the season because who knows.


Like Sinclair said, half of me hopes I did actually kill it because it's fine fescue 

I'll scarify these areas in hopes of breaking my prodiamine barrier and throw some seed down.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Is this confirmation that my turf issue is lack of water? I've been watering this little 8x13 section (former vegetable garden) which I seeded 3x per day, 5 minutes each watering. Check out the grass around it, green and lush.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Looks like shade could be a factor there from your trees. I truly feel you've been giving it a good amount of water, but it's not available to the turf.

The dethatcher passes may be the key, maybe there is a lot of sand used for grading, maybe it's something else like shallow roots. I think it's very likely the grass is dehydrated, the task is finding out why, probably going to come via trial and error. You're definitely well well on the right path for figuring it out though!

Watering daily for example would probably green the lawn but it's a lipstick and makeup solution and the grass will regress more if that was the final solution.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Kaba said:


> Looks like shade could be a factor there from your trees. I truly feel you've been giving it a good amount of water, but it's not available to the turf.
> 
> The dethatcher passes may be the key, maybe there is a lot of sand used for grading, maybe it's something else like shallow roots. I think it's very likely the grass is dehydrated, the task is finding out why, probably going to come via trial and error. You're definitely well well on the right path for figuring it out though!
> 
> Watering daily for example would probably green the lawn but it's a lipstick and makeup solution and the grass will regress more if that was the final solution.


The same area had been more dead than the surrounding area before I started daily watering, so I don't think it's shade.

For sure it's not a good final solution but it did make me think that during a heat wave if I'm doing everything properly but I still notice my grass starting to go dormant, frequent watering might be a Band-Aid to reach for. Agreed that fixing the the underlying problem is better, and frequent shallow watering is very difficult on this many square feet without irrigation anyways. :lol:

I dethatched today. 9 full yard waste bags, I'm spent lol. Looks a lot better though although the pics below don't really show it.

Finished too late to give it a good soaking, so tomorrow I'm hoping to do an N app and a deep watering.

I do feel like my soil is super sandy. I guess when I get my first soil test in the spring I'll get a measure of CEC, which might answer the question of ability to retain water?


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Wow 9 bags that's intense man, probably your problem right there. How many sqft is you backyard? Good work! Did you do 2 passes?

You can take a soil sample and put it in a jar of water to determine soil type, I've never done it but I know it's on YouTube how to.

I bought a 2 output digital hose timer on Amazon last year was like $40 and I set up multiple sprinlkers and just leave the hoses in the lawn, moving them occasionally slightly. That's how I'm watering my overseed. I use cheap in-ground rainbirds above ground on zinc spikes because I was so freaking sick of moving the impact around the yard.

I agree, giver some N, good soaking, and observe observe observe. My forecast after tomorrow has us down in the 60s to the lawn is going to heal quickly!


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Kaba said:


> Wow 9 bags that's intense man, probably your problem right there. How many sqft is you backyard? Good work! Did you do 2 passes?
> 
> You can take a soil sample and put it in a jar of water to determine soil type, I've never done it but I know it's on YouTube how to.
> 
> ...


9 bags included part of the frontyard, about 4500sqft total, so 2 bags per k. Yeah I did 2 perpendicular passes and probably could have gotten more out with a 3rd pass but I'm dead tired lol.

Yeah I thought of doing that kind of a setup but I'm hoping to put in an irrigation system soon so don't really want to spend on hoses, connectors, timers, etc. For now I'm just really dedicated at manual watering (wife can attest :lol


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## Harts (May 14, 2018)

I think you will notice a big difference in about a month as a result do the dethatch.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

How many inches of water are you applying?


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

g-man said:


> How many inches of water are you applying?


Through the heat of the summer I was doing 1.5" per week split into 2 or 3 waterings. Now that the heat's gone I'm at 1" per week in 2 waterings. I'm watering in my Urea with 0.5"


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Ok so how long is it supposed to take for FS to take effect? I mixed 2oz/k FS with 2oz/k urea and applied foliar (0.75gal/k carrier) 2 days ago and aside from the residual blue marker dye I don't see any color change.

My weekly 1lb/k (non-foliar) urea apps aren't spurring much growth either

So if my turf isn't absorbing through roots nor through leaves, what's its deal? What's it waiting for... It was growing like mad in the spring in this kind of weather. So impatient :roll:


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## Harts (May 14, 2018)

Be patient! It can take 4-5 days.

But you also shouldn't expect to wake up one morning and not recognize your lawn because it looks like Fenway.

I've been following your thread for a while now and I know you have thrown everything at you lawn the last month or so and haven't seen significant improvement. A soil test should be the first thing you do next spring (I don't believe you have done one yet). Don't throw anymore time or money at you grass until you know the state of the soil.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

The parts of my grass unwatered this summer are still in full blown dormancy, basically my entire neighborhood hasn't woken up yet, need to be a bit more patient probably. FAS doesn't do much if the grass isn't awake yet, I was planning my last app or two October.

Also, my lawn wasn't suddenly green when I did apply FAS this spring, it did have a slightly darker colour to it than normal after +/-5 days, depends on the fert you were giving it too. That said if you're colour is mired by brown haze FAS won't help any residual brown left in the lawn, only lawn paint will


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