# Salad Conversion to Zenith



## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Thank you all on this forum for your help and advice. It took a couple of years of various experiments to figure out the for the most part, zenith zoysia does well in my yard in the places where nothing else will thrive, and so the conversion is set to begin.

There are some areas of the yard that might be too shaded for zenith, and so I am looking at Citrblue SA to see how it performs in those areas. When I'm done, I'll have zenith over 80% of the yard where it gets nearly full sunlight, and I'll have CitraBlue in the shaded areas, and they'll duke it out in a transition area.

The main thing I'm trying to accomplish, beyond having less than five breeds of grass, is disease resistance. I've had enough of taking an entire spring to recover what died from large patch in the fall. By late summer it always looks good, and then in the fall, the targets and alien landing circles begin again. Interestingly, the local sod farms are now shying away from SA altogether and are now steering people toward zenith.

Beyond disease resistance, I'm looking to improve the number of chemicals that can be used without fear of harming the turf, and zenith will help with that. Looking to be able to burn the yard (it's legal where I live) for thatch management.

Approximately a month ago I had ordered 300 citrablue plugs to perform yet another test, and in the time since then, I've decided to convert as much as possible to zenith. I picked two patches that are both in the shade, away from the dog's play area, and are victims from large patch last fall. In one patch, I used a propane torch and burnt away the dead matter before plugging. In the other patch, i just plugged it as it sat. We will see how it does. I'm a little concerned SC might be too far north for the citrablue, but the only way to find out is to find out.

There is another batch of gumball trees I'll be taking down this spring as well, which will improve the light in the darkest area of the yard. When I'm done, about the only shade I'll have is pine canopy. Anyway, that's enough for now. I'll get some pictures in later today, possibly tomorrow.


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## SCGrassMan (Dec 17, 2017)

Zenith will do well even partially shaded. I have a neighbor who has it in an 8 foot gap between houses, and it's fine


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Just to get this documented for the purpose of a starting point...

Here is how the yard looked over the summer.







The yard last April had very large dead spots, and I was ticked off, because in summer of 2019 the yard looked almost that good as well.

Then, this march and April, after looking like that all summer, large dead spots again, which I now know to be rhizoctonia. So I'm sick of the annual rebuild.

Here are some pics I took yesterday where I put the citrablue plugs in on saturday. This patch is quite large. I have several patches at least ive times bigger in the back yard as well. The black spots are where I took a propane torch and burned away debris so I could put some plugs in with no competitive pressure.:



Here is another patch that is smaller:



Lastly, here is where I put zoysia sprigs right where the dogs love to fight to see how they'd hold up. These sprigs were placed last june and this pic was taken in late summer:


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

I harvested a few hundred sprigs from my zoysia plot and plugged various areas of the yard where the infection seems to be the worst and seems to be perennial. While digging around, I found a few grubs. I don't know how many is too many, but in my sprigging based on the number of sprigs and the number of grubs, I had a 2% hit rate. I was a bit surprised since I regularly treat the yard with bifenthrin, cypermethrin, and recently added fipronyl to the rotation. Wondering if I need to add imidocloprid to the mix.


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

I just read the super long grub control thread in the pest management section from cover to cover, and i checked out the linked resources. I now think I have a bigger grub issue than I thought. Over the summer, every time I mowed, I would get - not quite swarmed, but certainly pestered by these black and red beetles, and I never thought much of it, other than needing to adjust my insecticides. ultimately, this was what drove me to add Fipronil to my rotation. After finding the grubs that I found, and going through some of the material that's out there, I realize the beetles (Pretty sure they're either Japanese or June Beetles) are likely an indicator that my grub population is significant.

Needless to say, it's frustrating. I have confirmed Rhizoctonia, so the yard is potentially being attacked on two fronts. My plan for now is to not fertilize at all. I have enough propiconazole to hit the yard pretty hard as a curative and try to knock down the fungus. Still investigating what I want to do regarding fungicides for long term program.

And trying to figure out how to minimize total cost. Not afraid to use more expensive chemicals, especially if they're more effective, longer lasting, etc. In hotrodding, the cheap parts are the expensive parts and the expensive parts are the cheap parts. I'm wondering if this is also true in lawn chemicals...


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Put down a curative rate of propaconizole, chloranthiliprole (for grubs), and imidacloprid. I have enough PPZ to put down a few more treatments at the curative rate if needed. I'll likely do another round at the curative rate, just owing to how stubborn the diseased areas in the yard are. The chloranthiliprole is to treat the grubs I found while sprigging. imidacloprid might be a bit early, but I wanted to get it down before the june bugs start getting it on and laying eggs, even if I have to hit it again in July.

Then, come august, I plan to treat with Carbamyl to deal with anything that's left and hopefully just have less to fuss with next spring. The annual spring rebuild is getting old.

I haven't bought any yet, but my next move will be a Fluopyram to rotate in a different fungicide and get some anti-nematode activity as well. Will not fertilize at all this year. Just focus on correcting the stresses on the yard and plugging with zoysia from the good patches.


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Ok, so I'm not sure how patient to be...

I had business travel and so after spraying my yard I didn't see it again for six days. Then, when I saw it, I was both pleasantly surprised and sorely disappointed. Some of the areas that were thinning and really looked like they were dying back looked significantly improved. Some of the areas where the grass was just peeling back seem to be better anchored, which I take as good news. I'm hoping this is either from a reduction in grub population or the propaconizole relieving some of the fungal stress.

And then there were new areas that are yellowing and dying back, almost as if I never sprayed. it's very random what i'm seeing happen. Some of it is near concrete, making me think possibly a pH issue (too alkaline) but I've also got large areas turning yellow that are in the middle of the yard. I pulled up some of the roots, and they look all knotted and stubby, and it opens up these "holes" in the turf, which then of course weeds pop up. It's really an odd juxtaposition watching these dead areas recover and then seeing new areas dying off right nearby.

My Zenith plugs are taking off nicely already, although the area I've been harvesting from is now showing signs of distress. What is interesting is that some of the liriope I have in the yard was showing significant disease stress, and it looks great now. So, at least I think the PPZ curative treatment has been helpful.

It's early for June Bugs, but i've found some dead ones perched on blades of grass, which I believe is the Imidacloprid kicking in. I'll be hitting the yard with it again in June to time it with the egg laying habit of the June Bugs.

I ordered and received my Fluopyram. So my next question is how long to wait. Do I give it another couple of weeks to see how the turf recovers with what's on it, or do I decide from the evidence that I likely have a nematode infestation, in which case, sooner is better to get the Fluopyram down?

Of course, I'm traveling again, so my next opportunity to spray is next Saturday. My guess is I need to just go ahead and do it now to have the majority of the growing season to recover?


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

I got back in from traveling yesterday, and much of the stressed areas look improved, even without getting watered while I was gone. There are some areas that are yellowing badly and starting to thin, so I'm going to go ahead and hit the yard with a curative for nematodes this morning and try to water it in. I'm using Fluopyram mixed also with trifloxy - At this point, I figure I'll get these down, get them watered in. Then after a couple of days hit the yard with celcius, because I'm starting to get real weed pressure.

I have resisted putting down any root pruning Pre-M, because I don't need to add to the struggles. Onve the yard seems to be rebounding, I'll put down a summer Pre-M and then be ready to hit it going into the fall.


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Well, this is interesting. I put down the fluopyram yesterday morning and watered it in. i didn't use much water in any given spot, as I wanted to get it watered in before it dried onto the leaf and wouldn't go into the ground. Then, I've spent today kind of re-rotating the water to get a deeper watering. Well, this morning on the way back from church, both my wife and I were pleasantly surprised at how much healthier the grass looks. It still has the thin spots, but almost all of the yellow wilting is darkening back up.

I didn't expect such a fast reaction, but the grass definitely looks significantly healthier. I have an area of the yard I did not treat but did water so I could compare, and the difference is remarkable.

Should I have seen such a fast reaction to the fluopyram, or is this just more improvement from the propiconazole from 3 weeks ago?


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Progress pics of the two dead areas from earlier in the season showing great recovery. Both of these areas were plugged with citrablue. For the most part, I don't see much movement from the citrablue. Most of this recovery is the Palmetto:





Here's an example of where the turf has these growing yellowing patches. Thought I would post this up, as many people are suggesting nutrient solutions:



However, if I do a pull test...



... I don't think any nutrient amendments will fix this. Something is eating away at the roots.

Edit... Aside from the yellowing areas that are obviously suffering some some attack, the rest of the yard has responded tremendously to the Fluopyram treatment. The yard has popped out and actually looks like I fertilized, although I have not. I will see about getting a few before and after pictures.


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## dubyadubya87 (Mar 10, 2020)

Eye test indicates iron deficiency, but that may be take all patch I'm sad to say.


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

dubyadubya87 said:


> Eye test indicates iron deficiency, but that may be take all patch I'm sad to say.


I agree, the plant is iron deficient. My thinking is that the way the roots look -- all stubby and white and hairless -- the iron content of the soil won't matter, because the roots won't uptake the iron.

Plus, the rest of the yard is very dark green as though I had fertilized, and it's not been fertilized since last July.

I hadn't thought TARR, as I thought that turned the roots a nasty black color?


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## dubyadubya87 (Mar 10, 2020)

Darth_V8r said:


> dubyadubya87 said:
> 
> 
> > Eye test indicates iron deficiency, but that may be take all patch I'm sad to say.
> ...


I'd read somewhere that TARR showed yellowing as well, but you're right, the roots don't look like typical root rot.

"A lot of the yellow discoloration in St. Augustine grass lawns is due to the early stages of Take-All Root Rot activity," said Dr. Phil Colbaugh, Experiment Station plant pathologist at Texas A&M Dallas. "Roots of these affected plants are usually short, blackened and rotted, and the stolons (runners) can easily be lifted from the soil due to the poor root system. As the disease progresses, the yellow leaf blades will eventually turn brown."

Colbaugh said Take-All Root Rot can often be mistaken for Brown patch. These two diseases can be distinguished by pulling on the leaf blades of the yellow to brown leaves. Leaves of Take-All Root Rot plants are still firmly attached to the stolons, while leaves with Brown patch can easily be pulled away from the stolons. Also, Brown patch rarely causes the roots to turn black."
https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2002/05/22/problems-strike-st-augustine-lawns-all-over-the-south/


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Well I did some more pulling and evaluating roots, and sometimes when I pulled I could see stuff moving in the dirt. Other times I couldn't. I kept chasing what I saw moving in the dirt to try to get a good look at it or even photo it with the phone so I could try to ID it, but never got a good enough shot at it for long enough. I don't really know exactly what I saw, just movement.

So, I did a mechanical dethatch, figuring I wouldn't lose too much at this point, as the grass is actually greening up and growing. I noticed that there are still areas that appear dry no matter how much I water them. Some of these areas quite a lot of thatch came up, and others, not much at all came up. The other thing I noticed is my citrablue plugs are finally starting to spread a little bit. I'm surprised it took so long for them to start spreading, but they are. The zenith continues to thrive almost no matter what is done. I continue to add zenith to more square footage. I think this is going to be a multi-year conversion. Mostly I transplant it to the deadest looking areas of the yard as they crop up.

So, this weekend, given the health of the grass is improving, I went ahead with a carbaryl treatment from Sevin. For turfgrass, the rate listed for pretty broad control of almost everything was 2-4 quarts per acre. I put it down at 2 quarts, since I had done imidacloprid not too long ago. After spraying with carbaryl, it looked like the grass was moving. I saw a few red beetles specifically, but whatever it was that was making the ground look like it was moving, I couldn't see them individually. I don't think they liked the carbaryl though, since that seemed to set them off.

I went behind this with a celsius (3.7 oz per acre) + certainty (1 oz per acre) + specticle flo (6 oz per acre) mixture. I had been holding off on any herbicides until I felt the grass was not going to die off on me. Specifically, I had been avoiding any root-pruning pre-M treatments. I actually skipped my spring green up hit with prodiamine for this reason, so I have a bit more weed pressure this year so far. But for a while there I thought I was going to lose the lawn. Also, I wanted to remove all the thatch before I put any pre-M down, or else it would not be effective if I dethatched later.

Still no fertilizer apps, although in spots where it has responded well to treatment, you'd swear it was fertilized. I've dropped HOC a bit (2.5" vs 2.75"-3.0" before). There are a few places that scalp, but I've decide to let them scalp, and eventually the high spot will be worn down. The areas that are taken over by zenith, I cut at 2.0", which it seems to really do well at.


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Nothing but watering and mowing since last update. But it's finally starting to look like it did at the end of last season, other than the spots that are still filling back in. Also of note, I had plenty of areas in the yard that 30 minutes after watering, they would start to look dried out as though they never got any water. Most of those areas no longer look drought stressed.

Then, we finally got a decent rain, which we sorely needed. I'm hoping that as the zenith takes over, I'll have less rebuilding to do in subsequent years.


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Took wife out of town. Came back yesterday. Yard looked amazing compared to how it was left off. With no watering, treatments, attention or anything. I honestly think whatever was chomping on the grass, the carbaryl got, even though I never ID'd it. If I get any spare time this week, I'll be plugging the areas that still need to fill in with the proplugger.

I've got one area of the yard where I took out some trees, and the ground has settled, resulting in very uneven terrain, high scalpage, and s very specific path to properly cut. My thought is to bring in enough sand, gypsum, and peat to fill it in and smooth it over, then cover with zenith sod to anchor it.

The citrablue plugs are still alive, but seem to be very slow to spread. i'm kind of surprised, honestly. I expected the CB to kind of take off. Maybe that stuff is less shade tolerant than palmetto.


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

A few pics taken this morning (June 16) that show the damaged areas pretty well, and how the pattern was. There were a few large areas that took a hit, and tons of little spots:

This one, the area on the lower right of the pic took a big hit. But you can also see little pockets of damage scattered throughout.


Another pic showing how much of the yard got opened up by damage. I honestly had started to think I was going to lose the whole yard. All those little spots in the yard that look like tiny gaps in the turf were bright yellow, and one of those is the pull test in an earlier post showing the roots really not looking good at all.


Different angle, showing how widespread it was. The areas seem to have started filling back in now


At this point, I'm pretty sure it was either nematode or combination nematode + insect.


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Did another couple hundred plugs into the deadest areas of the yard, about four hours before Claudia came through and soaked us. Anyone hate the Pro Plugger? because it's freaking awesome!!


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

This year, my red beetle population is down at least 90% from previous years. I used to get swarmed by them when mowing in the summer. I saw three when I mowed saturday. Going to go ahead with another imidacloprid hit this week as a preventative, but what i've done already has definitely made a huge dent in this year's beetle population, which should mean next spring the grub population is lower. I think I'll also do another preventative fungicide app. I'm actually thinking to put down more fluo / trifloxy, as I really don't want to do anything to potentially burn the yard when it is finally recovering from everything.


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Continued recovery. Starting to see a few more beetles show up. i was going to wait for the weekend to do another dose of imidacloprid, but now I'm going to do it this afternoon. The whole property now goes significantly longer without showing signs of needing water.

Front yard here. The area by the dogwood, I removed 7 trees AND it's loaded with rocks. So I kind of ignore that spot when evaluating my yard. I can't dig down deep enough to remove the rocks. It's all backfill. Other than that, you can see all the little empty spots from early this spring are all but filled in.



The back yard color is not as good as the front, but I'm not going to fertilize. The back yard did better and had fewer problems BEFORE I fertilized than after. If I do anything, I'll put down a potash / surfactant mix. Definitely no nitrogen though.

One interesting note on the back yard. Last year, I fought these massive dead areas where the dogs fought. One of those areas, I sprigged with Zenith zoysia, and it is now almost fully filled in. It's the small patch of dirt int he center left of the picture. This area was over 10 feet across last summer. The other area, I did not sprig, so I could run a comparison test. That area is still dead (not included in picture). Last weekend, I pro-plugged a bunch into the dead areas. I'm really not sure what happens, but these dead areas get super hard, and once that happens, it seems only zenith will grow in those spots. But then, once the zenith takes hold, the other grasses will start spreading into the area and competing. My belief is that the root system of zenith is self-tilling, and after it loosens up the soil, other grasses can start to take root. Here is the back yard as of this morning:


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Had more bugs than i thought. Sprayed with imidacloprid, and the little boogars were hopping all over the place. I "watered it in" with carbaryl. Fought the sprayer clogging some, so only got the front done.


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

A few weeks of doing nothing but mowing. The zoysia plugs I did are all thriving - especially those I did in bare dirt where the bordering grass would not spread to cover for some reason or other.

Wish I had some pics to post, but the mower threw the drive belt halfway through mowing after coming back from vacation, and it did it at the bottom of the hill, so I had to push it uphill to get it to the shed, and it was too hot to work on.

The smaller areas where I had severe nematode / insect damage in the spring are almost completely healed. Completely greened over, but a tad thinner, so you can still see where they were.

The larger areas where disease was prevalent have mostly grown in. Those areas that I plugged with citrablue, one is doing tremendously well, and the other is struggling, but it appears as though the palmetto is dying back and the CB is spreading. There are still pretty big holes in the turf. I had hoped the CB would spread more aggressively, but it seems slow compared to palmetto. As long as it wins over palmetto, i don't care if it's slower.

Surveying the yard last night, I identified some spurge and some kyllinga, so I'm gonna need to treat. I put down some pre-M, but must have been too late for the spurge.


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Been a couple of months, but there has not been too much to report. Basically, I have implemented a few things I picked up in random posts by @Greendoc and @CenlaLowell .

1. I stopped planning my cuts around the "Only cut 1/3 of the blade" rule. In a post I can no longer find, @Greendoc made a comment that cutting by schedule and only removing 1/3 of the blade contributed to thatch, and on his lawns, he lets them grow and then cuts them low. Basically, I implemented that strategy. With a slight twist. If, for example, it has been really hot and dry, I did not cut until there was a break in the heat so the grass didn't dry out as badly. Sometimes, this meant the grass had gotten fairly long.

2. I stopped fertilizing altogether. I was following @CenlaLowell and his "No Fert" approach, and I realized much of my issues started when I began pushing fertilizer. So while I have treated with insecticides and such, my chemical demand has actually decreased quite substantially. So has my need to water the yard. For the most part, it has stayed healthy between rainfalls, and even when there were some ten day stretches between rain, it had just started to show signs of needing water on the ninth or tenth day.

I have come to appreciate and prefer the apple green color of the grass vs the blue-green color of fertilized grass. When I see apple green, I see healthy. When I see Blue-green, I see over-fed and likely future disease-ridden turf. Took a change in mindset. Wife and I still disagree. She prefers the blueish color, but admits the grass has been much healthier. There is still some spurge and Kyllinga hanging around, but it has not spread like it would have last year. And I have a few patches of wild violet showed up. But overall, my weed pressure is greatly reduced vs previous years.

Two weekends ago, I took down 7 gum trees, limbed, logged, and stacked. This past weekend, I put down a fresh round of bifenthrin, a preventative dose of fluopyram and trifloxy to try to get ahead of the fall death patches I tend to get. Did a blanket app of Celsius and went ahead with Specticle Flo Pre-M, which is early, but the past two years I've been late, so I did it early this year to try to get ahead of Poa.

This celsius app was my first treatment of post-emergent weedkiller since early spring.

As to the conversion, the zenith continues to thrive under abuse. The nematode damage is completely healed over, and the zoysia plugs are taking off. Since it is now September, I'm not going to transplant any more plugs, but I am very confident that the yard will fully transition in 3-5 years with this approach. As I encounter dying areas, I simply plug with zenith. I now have several segments of the yard that are near 1000 sf completely taken over.

My citrablue test plugs are still present, and just seem to spread very very slowly. I will find out if they survive the winter in SC. I do not see the CB spreading any faster than the zenith, which surprised me, given how fast palmetto seems to spread.

One thing I have come to enjoy is the people asking how I got the yard to do so well, and when I say I don't use fertilizer and rarely water if ever, the utter disbelief in their faces.


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Coming out of winter, I have several findings to report:

1. The past two years, significant portions of my yard had died back and I had spent all spring and summer repairing. For the first time since I owned the property, this did NOT happen. It was a harsher winter this year vs the previous two, but the turf survived it MUCH better than before. Very happy about this. I believe I can attribute this to the cessation of fertilizing AND the Luna / Exteris treatments.

2. I had large patch still, but not nearly as severe as before. Some of the areas of the yard that routinely had it, seemed to not have it this past fall. However, I can see it in spring greenup that there are larger circles that are not greening up as quickly as the rest of the yard.

3. My citrablue test area is a nice dark green, and it is in the middle of a large patch, uuhhh...., patch. So I can confirm that citrblue is far more disease resistant vs palmetto. However, the citrblue is FAR slower to spread. Where I put the test plugs, it has not filled in, and I spaced them 6" apart, AND I had torched all the organic material where I plugged. I did this 11 months ago.

4. Far and away my best year for POA intrusion. I have very little of it at all, and normally by now I have some. It has never been terrible, but it was definitely lighter this year vs the previous winter to spring transitions. The difference this time was I used Specticle instead of Prodiamine.

5. Seeing the yard in full dormancy, it was easier to identify which areas of the yard were taken over by which grasses. The Tifblair seems to outcompete the palmetto and has pushed the palmetto into retreat, except in the heaviest shaded areas. I think over 30% of the palmetto area was overtaken by Tifblair last summer.

My plan for spring:

1. More Specticle
2. Low Rate MSM and Dicambra (Fahrenheit)
3. Luna
4. Continue ProPlugging zenith into the deadest areas of the yard (predominantly palmetto areas) after the grass has fully come out of dormancy.

Over the summer:

1. Celsius plus certainty
2. Luna
3. As little as possible of everything else.


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