What's Going on With My Lawn?
- Smolenski7
- Posts: 1106
- Joined: July 8th, 2010, 8:56 pm
- Location: Central CT
- Grass Type: Northern Mix
- Lawn Size: 10000-20000
- Level: Some Experience
What's Going on With My Lawn?
I went to work on my lawn last Friday and noticed a lot of yellow spotting seemingly over night. It has gotten a bit worse over the last few days, but not much. I've never noticed anything like this before; it's weird. My lawn looks like it has the grass equivalent to the measles. And, so do my neighbors on either side of me and even one behind me.
To be specific, the yellow spots are only occurring in sunny areas, nothing in shaded spaces whether the shade is under a tree or by my house. The grass mix is nothing special. It's a blend of whatever the contractor put down 25 years ago and whatever seed I find that matches the original color best. There is one small area though, that gets full sun, that I planted with a mix of seed from the SuperSeedStore that has no yellow spots at all. That mix seems to be immune.
As for care, my neighbor has a service, so it's cut regularly but not mulched. He lets the grass fly. It's fertilized on a different schedule than mine too. I use most organic, however, during the early fall I do put down urea. This year I also put down Barricade for the poa. The weather last week was rainy and fairly cold at night, but for the past 5 days it's been in the 70's.....in Connecticut.....in November!
So, what's going on with my lawn and the neighbors'?
To be specific, the yellow spots are only occurring in sunny areas, nothing in shaded spaces whether the shade is under a tree or by my house. The grass mix is nothing special. It's a blend of whatever the contractor put down 25 years ago and whatever seed I find that matches the original color best. There is one small area though, that gets full sun, that I planted with a mix of seed from the SuperSeedStore that has no yellow spots at all. That mix seems to be immune.
As for care, my neighbor has a service, so it's cut regularly but not mulched. He lets the grass fly. It's fertilized on a different schedule than mine too. I use most organic, however, during the early fall I do put down urea. This year I also put down Barricade for the poa. The weather last week was rainy and fairly cold at night, but for the past 5 days it's been in the 70's.....in Connecticut.....in November!
So, what's going on with my lawn and the neighbors'?
- MorpheusPA
- Posts: 18136
- Joined: March 5th, 2009, 7:32 pm
- Location: Zone 6 (Eastern PA)
- Grass Type: Elite KBG
- Lawn Size: 10000-20000
- Level: Advanced
Re: What's Going on With My Lawn?
I think we're going to need some closeups of the yellow areas because the wide-screen edition above doesn't really show anything wrong. If anything, they both look pretty healthy to my eye. Perhaps it's dropping into dormancy due to the initial cold weather kick and lowered sunlight (warm weather right now regardless)?
But offhand, I don't detect anything wrong just from what I'm seeing.
But offhand, I don't detect anything wrong just from what I'm seeing.
- Smolenski7
- Posts: 1106
- Joined: July 8th, 2010, 8:56 pm
- Location: Central CT
- Grass Type: Northern Mix
- Lawn Size: 10000-20000
- Level: Some Experience
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- Posts: 44
- Joined: May 28th, 2020, 2:06 pm
- Location: Northeastern CT
- Grass Type: KBG and Fescue
- Lawn Size: 1 acre-2 acre
- Level: Some Experience
Re: What's Going on With My Lawn?
I noticed the same thing on my neighbors lawn. At first thought it might have been spot treatments for weeds, but almost looks like fertilizer burn on his. Yours definitely looks like a different issue. the texture of the weed/grass in that pic suggests to me that whatever is there is dying off a bit. My guess is some weed, but tough to tell from the pic
- MorpheusPA
- Posts: 18136
- Joined: March 5th, 2009, 7:32 pm
- Location: Zone 6 (Eastern PA)
- Grass Type: Elite KBG
- Lawn Size: 10000-20000
- Level: Advanced
Re: What's Going on With My Lawn?
That's much more edifying and definitely not dormancy; it looks more like a fungal infection, although I'll be durned if I can tell you what it is. Let's see if somebody else can give you a positive ID because it looks like you caught that super-early.
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- Posts: 34
- Joined: May 15th, 2020, 12:00 pm
- Location: Long Island
- Grass Type: Northern Mix
- Lawn Size: 1000-3000
- Level: Some Experience
Re: What's Going on With My Lawn?
Neighbors lawn is turning also, but I'm sure it's dormancy like Morph said. His lawn turns early every fall and comes back nice late spring...
- Smolenski7
- Posts: 1106
- Joined: July 8th, 2010, 8:56 pm
- Location: Central CT
- Grass Type: Northern Mix
- Lawn Size: 10000-20000
- Level: Some Experience
- __JT__
- Posts: 170
- Joined: May 10th, 2016, 9:25 pm
- Location: SE Mass. zone 6A
- Grass Type: Northern Mix (20% each of Midnight, Diva, and Everglade Kentucky bluegrass, and 20% Zodiac chewings fescue and 20% Fiesta 4 perennial ryegrass) with Bewitched mixed into shade
- Lawn Size: 10000-20000
- Level: Experienced
Re: What's Going on With My Lawn?
My lawn has that too. It showed up a week ago. It's weird, I've never seen it before. Mine is a northern mix from SSS. I noticed it on a neighbor's yard as well. Hard to tell on other yards. It stands out more on higher maintained lawns.
I'm not sure what it is?. The pattern does match fallen leave scatter. I thought it might be some snow mold blight? It was unusual to have 2-3 inches of snow a few weeks back, when the grass is still succulent. I didn't see any webbing, but it might be that conditions were that it came and went, and now the damage damage is visible...
My grass is still active (mowing every 4-5 days) so hopefully it will grow out somewhat...We just had a stretch of dry weather, might help to remedy it...
I'm not sure what it is?. The pattern does match fallen leave scatter. I thought it might be some snow mold blight? It was unusual to have 2-3 inches of snow a few weeks back, when the grass is still succulent. I didn't see any webbing, but it might be that conditions were that it came and went, and now the damage damage is visible...
My grass is still active (mowing every 4-5 days) so hopefully it will grow out somewhat...We just had a stretch of dry weather, might help to remedy it...
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- Posts: 246
- Joined: June 21st, 2009, 6:07 am
- Location: Raynham, MA zone 6
- Grass Type: northern mix
- Lawn Size: Not Specified
- Level: Not Specified
Re: What's Going on With My Lawn?
I had it too... called the Local John Deere Lesco (or whatever its called now) they got dozens of calls about it as well. They called University of Rhode Island and was told it was due to the rapid cooling and freezing of the turf. Made worse by walking on it.
It will grow out.
It will grow out.
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- Posts: 31
- Joined: September 26th, 2018, 4:16 pm
- Location: Boston, North Shore
- Grass Type: TTTF/KBG
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Re: What's Going on With My Lawn?
It's called Chilling Injury.
You can read about it here.
https://ag.umass.edu/sites/ag.umass.edu ... r_2020.pdf
You can read about it here.
https://ag.umass.edu/sites/ag.umass.edu ... r_2020.pdf
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