Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design 1 Dec 31, 2011 2:33 pm We put our lawn in back in March. We did all of Fu's prep. And no, we don't have any dogs. The front is Sapphire Buffalo, the back in Empire Zoysia. It was looking good five weeks ago, as you can see from these photos in this thread (scroll down): viewtopic.php?f=19&t=52642 Aftercare has been the same. Molasses and seasol every three weeks or so. Water as per Water Corp allowance with hand watering on hot, dry days. We aerated a couple of weeks ago and put down more Sand Remedy, as well as Saturaid and Weta Lawn (granular bentonite). During the winter I used liquid blood and bone and Shades of Green. So, here's how things are looking now: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Front yard Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Front yard Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Close up Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Back yard Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Back yard Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Back yard Now, I have all the armchair critics (neighbours and in-laws) yelling, "Lawn grub! Go get some grub killer!" but I've been working on feeding the soil and I don't want to just start madly slapping pesticides on there for some suspect reason. I've not even used herbicide on it except once last fall. Everything's been organic, by hand, and by Fu's specs. So, what is going on? Is this just typical summer dry out? What do I need to do? Will these spots come back? Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 2Dec 31, 2011 4:37 pm I wouldn't be looking at lawn grubs, Your lawn mower doesn't leak petrol does it? Did it dry out slowly or did it happen within a few days? It probably just isn't that established to handle all the heat you guys have been having, that and lack of rain. Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 3Dec 31, 2011 5:58 pm No, no leaking petrol. I'm trying to recall when it started to look like this and I have photos of our front yard when I put up the Christmas lights on December 11 and it was fine and green. So, it started maybe two weeks ago. It's been getting extra watering since last week (twice a day for spots that need it), so not sure what else can be done. Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 4Jan 01, 2012 12:36 pm I had similar patches in my Zenith Zoysia, twas from overwatering, ive since layed off the water its been fine. I'm really no expert in this area but it might pay to look into damping-off disease. Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 5Jan 01, 2012 2:43 pm Damping off disease? I've only started watering the extra days when it turned yellow. I'd have thought that our lawns here in Perth are usually more excessively dry than soggy...hmm... I don't want to start putting fungicide all over both lawns until I know what it is... Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 6Jan 01, 2012 3:59 pm Japonica26 Damping off disease? I've only started watering the extra days when it turned yellow. I'd have thought that our lawns here in Perth are usually more excessively dry than soggy...hmm... I don't want to start putting fungicide all over both lawns until I know what it is... Valid point about climate, its a bit different in SE Qld this might help, but ill retreat and leave it to the experts. http://www.nilgs.affrc.go.jp/db/disease ... s/de28.htm Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 7Jan 01, 2012 8:17 pm Looks like a fungal disease to me like brown patch. My EZ copped it bad this year from the excessive rainfall. Search "fungal brown patch" on the forums there is some great info and pics in various threads. Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 8Jan 01, 2012 8:53 pm This might help a bit; viewtopic.php?f=19&t=26792&start=0 Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 9Jan 01, 2012 11:01 pm Thanks Beatrix...that thread was very helpful. I recall some of what Fu had said before about lawn beetle always being present and that a healthy lawn should do just fine, so I was thinking it must be fungal. We had LOADS of rain here...our wettest December in something like 30 years added to quite a few 35+ days, I guess it's no surprise then that fungus has shown up. Nothing to do I guess but what I have been doing and what for the healthy areas to grow back in...looks terrible right now though... Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 10Jan 02, 2012 12:30 pm You can scratch out the dead bits with a rake, aerate, then cut out small squares of healthy turf from elsewhere in the yard and plant them in the dead spots. Give the bare patches a light top dressing with compost and water in with seasol. If the dead spots keeps growing apply mancozeb plus or similar to the whole lawn to stop its spread. Do not use anything with nitrogen in it and avoid night watering. It will take a long time to repair to be honest. I did the above and its taken till now to repair the damage since september. If you cant stand the sight of it it might be worth getting a few turf rolls to patch up the damage. Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 11Jan 02, 2012 2:45 pm I did part of that already (so it seems I'm on the right track). I've raked and we did seasol and no night watering. Aerated two weeks ago. I'll look into patching with healthy turf and picking up the mancozeb. Thanks again... Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 12Jan 08, 2012 3:06 pm Hi there , I have a similar problem in Perth, though the affected areas are much smaller> I have top dressed and am watering a bit more and it has improved a tiny bit, but there are still some very dead looking bits. The grass that is growing in these areas appear to be a lot thinner bladed as well.. Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 13Jan 08, 2012 8:55 pm We are in Melbourne and recently experienced 4 days of extreme heat which resulted in our lawn looking identical to yours. Have you had similar hot weather prior to this happening? We know that there is concrete or builders rubble about a foot beneath each section which has browned off (tree root barriers and soakage pit lids mainly). This could be another explanation for the browing off. Incidentally, it is recovering now that we had some heavy rain last two days. Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 14Jan 08, 2012 10:46 pm We dosed it with mancozeb over the weekend. I think it is fungal, just my intuition. Some parts of the lawn are not affected at all. And some of the worst areas are right next to the retic heads. The grass is starting to come back in some of the earliest patches...there's new growth and it's very green, but sparse to date. But I take it as a good sign that within a couple of weeks, it is coming back. Whew. I'm going to give it some seasol this week and after another good rake of the dead spots. Trinity...we had a few days, maybe a week, of hot temps, but it's been unusually cool here in Perth lately (for summer). Lucky if we crack 30C some days. Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 15Jan 09, 2012 11:43 am Hey Japonica, where did you get the mancozeb and how much is it worth? Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 16Jan 09, 2012 1:12 pm Hi Deeps, You can get it from bunnings but really from your previous post it would be overkill to use a heavy duty fungicide for small patches of dead lawn. Turf fungus come an go when the conditions suit them, mancozeb can only treat fungus that are active. So if the patches aren't spreading then its just a waste of time and money. And really you don't want to be spraying the stuff unless you really have too. Fu suggested a eco-fungicide in one post somewhere recently and I think that would be a better choice for small patches. Just remember nitrogen (fertiliser) warmth and moisture make fungal diseases go nuts. You can control the fertiliser and moisture (irrigation) part of this equation and that is the best treatment for fungal diseases. Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 17Jan 09, 2012 3:17 pm Yeah, I wasn't going to do the mancozeb either but noticed the middle section of the EZ starting to go a little yellow, so I thought I'd try and stop the spread as much as we're able to. It was also spreading in the Sapphire Buffalo out front. Now I've got to work on feeding the soil back up after this fungal issue is under control. I'm sure using anti-fungals aren't great for all those soil microbes I've been trying to keep healthy and well fed. Here's the updated photos from today, ten days from the original post. I also know it's not from the lawn being dry because we've cut back all watering except retic for now (mornings, 2x a week as per corp rules) and stopped the evening hand watering and yet you can see the new growth coming in...so that's why I think it's fungal... Like ⋅ 1 comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Back yard, EZ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Close up of new growth in the dead patch Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ More re-growth Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Start of new growth in the Sapphire Buffalo in the front yard Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Front yard, Sapphire Buffalo I think it actually says a lot about Fu's prep that it could look as bad as it did ten days ago (see pics at the top of the thread) and has come back nicely so far in a short while. The only thing we've done besides the mancozeb over the weekend has been raking, cutting back on watering, and we're going to add some seasol this week. We did aerate and add some additional sand remedy and organic wetting agents before Christmas. Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 18Jan 09, 2012 9:31 pm Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 19Jan 09, 2012 9:51 pm On the flip side, the empire zoysia I put in myself at the back around 3 weeks ago is looking great Re: What's up with our lawn? Yellow patches. 20Jan 10, 2012 12:09 pm Hi deeps,
The grass around and in the patches looks pretty healthy so i think you will be right. If more patches start popping up consider a fungicide but I doubt you will need it once the dry heat kicks up (try and make sure the new patches are the same cause not dog/possum wee burn etc.). Follow the recommend care a few posts back and you should be right. Cheers, Beatrix Hi guys, I want to do some floor levelling before laying the planks and am considering doing it with self-levelling or yellow tongue PB board. I am wondering which one… 0 6509 the leaves that are now underground go yellow, the tips that poke through photosynthesise and have chlorophyll, same reason they grow rhubarb in the dark. 5 4811 |