Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Kentucky bluegrass, Fescue, Rye and Bent, etc
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Adam_M
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Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by Adam_M » May 22nd, 2021, 8:58 am

I noticed a patch of grass I planted last fall because the grass died there in summer 2020 starting to die again before it really even took. This is the area that has historically been the indicator that I'm about to lose the rest of the lawn on the Eastern side of the house, although this is about a month earlier than normal. Any ideas on how to save this?

I'm definitely anxious and a bit frustrated because it seems I'm just destined to reseed my yard every year.

Milo went down the first week of May, I watered on Thursday.
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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by JeffreyLebowski » May 22nd, 2021, 9:56 pm

Same thing happening to me. Some of my newer grass is not doing well in full sun areas. Better in shade. I put a ton of water down today but I anticipate overseeding again this fall.

On the bright side, most of my new grass did well. Its a multiyear process to really establish a full thick lawn.

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by bpgreen » May 23rd, 2021, 1:29 am

We need more information.

Have you done a Logan labs soil test and followed the recommendations of soil team six?

How often do you water, for how long, and how much water does that supply?

There's an old saying that the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing many times, hoping for different results. I hate to point it out, but that seems to be what you're doing.

You need to identify why this is happening and correct it.

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by Adam_M » May 23rd, 2021, 8:24 am

I've done the soil test yearly since 2017, and followed the recommendations, backing off on the n (...and p and k) the past 2 years when the grass declined as to not "push" dying grass.

Water is typically by mother nature, but when it isn't I water about once a week, (until it's apparent the grass is dead, then I stop...) sometimes shortened to once every 4-5 days if the grass looks like it needs it I.e. it gets that grayish blue cast and just starts to get crispy. It takes about 2 hours and I get 1 inch down.

The best year I had for the lawn was year 2 after seeding - it looked great, and I let it go dormant that summer. I tired that the next year too, and well that's when the problems started.

There's no doubt I need to try something different this year instead of banging my head against the same wall. Morph's plan for this year calls for less total n, and a more delicate hand around summer so that's the first change, but yes, something else is off. I just don't know what it is.

The craziest part of this is is only 1 (albeit large, 4-5k) and one smaller 1k spot. The rest of the lawn looks very good. Dark green, thick, lush. And there is an abrupt transition, its not like the grass declines over a distance of a 10-15 feet even. There's a horizon line. Good grass on one side, grass that I routinely lose on the other.

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by andy10917 » May 23rd, 2021, 8:37 am

I think it's time to look into testing to see if you're dealing with "Summer Patch Disease". The timing and the description would make me think that is worth considering. Also, look up pictures and compare to what you're experiencing.


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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by Adam_M » May 23rd, 2021, 9:51 am

I've been kind of afraid of that. That was a theory a couple years ago and disease ex stopped the issue once, but never worked again so I moved on. I suppose it's time to get a sample to Rutgers.

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by Green » May 23rd, 2021, 6:40 pm

A first good step to always do is a "screwdriver test" because it's easy. It'll rule out (or rule in) buried debris or rocks being the issue.

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by andy10917 » May 23rd, 2021, 8:01 pm

A 5000 square foot rock?

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by Adam_M » May 24th, 2021, 10:40 am

This area is the spoils from my house foundation. I'm pretty confident there's no large rocks in it, but there's millions of tiny little flakes of decomposed shale with about an inch of topsoil on it. Good soil it is not.

Here's a link to the maximum extent of the die-off last year:
https://postlmg.cc/XXXQWgJx

Andy suggested a separate soil test, once, to see if there are notable differences - which I haven't pulled yet (I've been working on another relatively large project on another tier of the yard above this one), but plan to.

I pulled the plug yesterday for Rutgers, and it should be going in the mail today. I also had a very favorable rain forecast so I dropped a couple bags of disease ex at the curative rate - because it was here. I did pull the plug before the disease ex went down...

I'm about due for a dose of 19-19-19 and the end of the week looks like rain too, which is quite convenient. Should I drop it or hold off until we hear back about any potential pathogens?

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by MorpheusPA » May 24th, 2021, 1:57 pm

"This area is the spoils from my house foundation."

Crap. In other words. Also what I thought when I read that. So thin soil, potential disease, bad weather this year, and so on and so on.

That may always be a problem patch. Let me think on this...

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by Adam_M » May 28th, 2021, 8:22 am

I heard back from Rutgers. No disease of any kind, so I guess that's a nugget of good news. Their recommendations seemed to go against the common knowledge here - 1/2 lb of N every month until October 15th, from an acidifying nitrogen source to lower my pH, and core aeration, and applying water not in a single does.

...I don't plan to stray from the Morpheus's plan unless otherwise advised (no more fertilizer until around labor day) unless otherwise advised. Is it really possible the grass is just hungry and thirsty?

From everything I've learned here, I'd need about a dump truck of sulfur to lower the pH with all the calcium in my soil, so I'm not sure if their recommendation of acidifying N sources is going to show a long-term change. Could it simply be treating the high pH chronically by routinely hitting it with an acid, starting a cycle of temporarily dropping the pH every time the fertilizer goes down? Is that even possible?

I'm indifferent to the aeration. This is really the first year I've had any weed pressure in that area, so now there's now probably seeds to be surfaced, but it seems to me that if I aerate, I'd need to immediately topdress to impact a meaningful change in soil composition - much in the same way that golf courses top dress with sand to control the subsurface soil of greens.

Sure - I probably could dump more water on this area of the lawn. Not quite sure why they suggest split apps?

What does the group here recommend?

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by MorpheusPA » May 28th, 2021, 3:58 pm

Don't bother with the sulfur. I am not a fan of sulfur applications; it's not particularly effective, surface-applied sulfur is partly lost to the air as smog (sulfur dioxide), and with large amounts of calcium, it will take large amounts of sulfur to simply turn it to gypsum.

Use of acidifying nitrogen--sure. Just use urea, it's sufficiently acidifying, and quite cheap. The bang-buck ratio is extremely high.

"Could it simply be treating the high pH chronically by routinely hitting it with an acid, starting a cycle of temporarily dropping the pH every time the fertilizer goes down? Is that even possible?"

Not really. It makes a momentary drop, binds to a salt, and washes out. More alkaline ions get released just due to simple osmotic pressure. Over extremely long, glacially long, periods, you might wear down that mountain with the bird's wing, but it's a mountain. You are not an immortal bird.

But urea is absolutely on the table in late May, September, October, and November. Right up until the lawn is no longer green.

My overall solution is sure, trickle nitrogen into it...but do it organically and let nature do the friggin' work for you. I'm a lazy sod (joke intended). In that area, if small (if it really is that small from the photos, that's actually trivial), feed with cracked corn at the sixty to seventy pound per thousand square foot rate per month in May, August, September, and October. That's a pound of nitrogen equivalent released very slowly, and an enormous amount of leftover organics working in. Do the surrounding area ten feet out to encourage breeding grounds for worms, plenty of water storage, and so on.

If larger, just use any handy organic at bag rate. Apply corn or other organics as you can in the area. Anything goes. Application months are May, August, September, and October (but once temps drop and you need a sweater and coat, it's too cold).

And move leaves into the area in fall to mulch mow there. Pile it on, as much as the area can handle (it should easily be able to handle up to 100 pounds per thousand of incidentals the first year; once adjusted, I've gone to 1,300 pounds of organics per thousand with no issues).

If you can't get the soil to work with you, move worms in and let's try to get the soil turned over. Gypsum and other trash actually can be degraded in many cases. It just takes time. Concrete...well, out of luck there, so we may end up needing to dig this out, but let's try some microbial magic first.

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by MorpheusPA » May 28th, 2021, 4:02 pm

Oh. If you want, app of lots of cracked corn in one spot in June isn't going to cause explosions or issues and that doesn't look good anyway. Just keep it watered. Then take July off and resume around August tenth or so.

Or wait for August. Whatever you prefer.

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by Adam_M » May 28th, 2021, 5:03 pm

Thanks!

It is a couple small areas now, but if the pattern continues, the bad spot is going to expand quite rapidly once it gets hot for good. I had 2nd year grass in this area in 2018 that looked absolutely incredible, but I haven't been able to duplicate that since - it's had varying levels of fail since then - some self induced like a fertilizer burn. In fact, the grass in this area that I planted last fall is still too short to be cut, so something is definitely up. I'd love to help that out but taking the conservative route and not pouring N on beyond the prescribed remediation plan both for fear of overdoing it and forcing top growth if it's still pouting.

I'm new to organics, other than Milo - and I know that's a different game. Any suggestions on where to start? I've got a tractor supply around that I can check out to see what's available. What is the preferred source - soybean meal, cracked corn - I'd be worried about little corn plants here, others? Would this be in addition to the soil remediation plan or in place of it? Noted on taking July off in any case.

I dropped 19-19-19 a couple days ago, and while the bag I have didn't show the breakdown, other 19-19-19's I've found labels for were 12% urea, so check on the urea.

This is actually the area where I dump most of my leaves - knowing it's the worst soil.

I don't know that I'd call this proverbial concrete yet - I CAN dig it (with effort when dry and it's not miserable other than being heavy and sticky when wet) and the worms started to move in en masse a year or 2 ago. I'd really rather not dig it out and replace the soil if there's other options...

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by MorpheusPA » May 29th, 2021, 12:46 am

I remediated ten K worth of absolutely lousy "top" soil so absolutely anything can be remediated. Although large stones, pieces of concrete, and so on, should probably be removed...

"I'm new to organics, other than Milo - and I know that's a different game. Any suggestions on where to start? I've got a tractor supply around that I can check out to see what's available. What is the preferred source - soybean meal, cracked corn - I'd be worried about little corn plants here, others? Would this be in addition to the soil remediation plan or in place of it? Noted on taking July off in any case."

It's really very easy. I note you're in the midst of applications to adjust soil, so keep those up. They'll also adequately feed the grass, so we're not terribly concerned about that. As such, whatever you can get is absolutely wonderful at the moment. Cracked corn, for our area, is probably going to be cheapest--and for either, it's going to have to be a farmer's supply, animal feed store, or grain mill.

Any app rate from 10 to 65 pounds per thousand is fine for corn (it's only about 1.6% nitrogen, so that would be from 0.16 to 1 pound N per thousand square feet). As it's organic, and very slow, it's not going to interact with the fast nitrogen, and really won't cause any problems in terms of overapplication (corn is going to bind as much as it releases at first, re-releasing it as time goes on quite slowly).

Later on, soy is more on the table for feeding (currently handled by your 19-19-19). At 6.5-1-1 or so, it's a heftier feed at only 15 to 20 pounds per thousand. Release is faster, but there's a lot less left over at the end and you're applying less as well. However, it's a lot more than the nothing left over from the 19-19-19 fertilizer, organically speaking.

Dates differ a bit, as noted. June's not optimal for feeding in either case, but for corn, due to the slow nature and the fact that it'll never dump nitrogen, it's OK. I wouldn't apply soy in June unless somebody was doing a "last chance" feeding and missed the window earlier. Mostly, for organics, earlier in May is optimal to give them time to decay in, which takes 2 to 3 weeks. Which is also the reason for August application instead of September as for synthetics.

They don't work well in colder weather, so October some years is great, and not great in others. Usually I try to drop on October first, quite promptly, with a "fast" organic like soybean meal. The weather may be chill, but even the carrots go bad in the crisper eventually at 35 degrees and October days are much warmer than that. I also realize that the organics I drop in October will still be releasing their organic goodness very slowly the following April.

And for the final winterization app, you do have to use a good synthetic. For me, that's mid to late November. Urea is my most common choice as the weather is cold, burn is extremely unlikely, and the stuff is the cheapest nitrogen source. It's also dual-purpose as I use it as the primary ingredient for my outdoor plant mix in the EZ-Flo system in the gardens, so I can buy 50 pound bags knowing I'll go through at least 1 a year.

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by bpgreen » May 29th, 2021, 1:55 am

I laugh at their suggestion to use acidifying nitrogen sources to raise your ph.

You could buy some hydrochloric acid at a pool supply site, get a bulb augur, drill holes in the lawn, and pour the hcl into the holes and it would only change things temporarily. I'm not saying I've tried that, but I do know for a fact that it won't work.

Ok. I tried it. It didn't work. I mean it worked for about a week. But that's not really helpful. If hcl won't make a difference, what chance does acidifying nitrogen fertilizer have?

If you're trying to keep a tree alive, a bulb augur and soil sulfur can create sulfuric acid, but you need to bury the sulfur and it's only going to help with targeted applications. And even then, it's temporary. It'll last longer than foliar iron sprays or chelated iron, but it's only practical on small areas, not the entire lawn.

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by Adam_M » May 29th, 2021, 7:36 am

Are deer a problem with the cracked corn? I've got a family of about 8 that live in and around my yard. Thankfully the township just passed an eradication program but it doesn't start until fall.

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by JeffreyLebowski » May 29th, 2021, 8:53 am

If I put cracked corn on my yard it would cause a deer riot. They love it.

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by MorpheusPA » May 29th, 2021, 1:27 pm

It would depend. I'd be inclined to test and see if it causes an issue; around me, it doesn't with my rabbits and deer. The deer don't seem to notice it as it's on the ground.

The rabbits do, but they're local and stay local, so the...leavings...end up on the lawn as well, and that's part of the process in turning it to organics, so that's fine.

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Re: Starting to lose a patch of 2020-planted grass

Post by Adam_M » June 1st, 2021, 2:25 pm

Cracked corn went down at somewhere around 65 pounds/k yesterday, and the local wildlife hasn't noticed. We'll see how this goes.

Of note, I like Agway's brand far better than Tractor Supply's. Agway's goes through the spreader just fine, Tractor Supply's was too big and kind of annoying to spread.

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