Bermuda dying, help!

[ryanlaschober]

Hey y’all,

You guys have been a wealth of knowledge this year and then looked great all summer. Over the past few weeks I have developed significant bare spots in my lawn (see pictures)

A bit of history: last summer I had significant yellow sedge in this area. I sprayed it in the summer on a 100+ degree day and learned quickly that was the wrong idea and torched areas of my lawn. I plugged these areas in the spring and it came back great. July and August had zero rain in central Texas but I still watered twice a week. It has been raining for the last 3 weeks and now these patches are very appearant. May all be in my head, but I feel like they significantly worsened when I mowed when it was wet 3 weeks ago (busy week, had no other option. Another thought is these were similar areas to where I torched last year and being new plugged Bermuda this year had difficulty tolerated the drought. Would love your help, thanks!

Applications this year:
Dimension: feb, April
Leacock 15-5-10: March, may
Milorganite: June, July
Spot treatments: celsius, certainty, speedzone. ( all on <85 degree days, none since May)

[gardenpants]

In your second and third photos, it looks like there are small holes in the soil in the brown parts of the grass. If that’s true, have you checked for grubs? You can grab some of the brown turf and see if you can pull it up like a carpet.

(Nice drone photo, BTW!)

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

Too much water. Let it dry out for a full month and see if it looks better.

Where are you in Central Texas? Central Texas is larger than most of the New England states.

On the drone shot, I'm going to call up => north. Just north of the roof line looks like a landing where people and/or animals always step. That is going to be a problem area if you are looking for perfection. To the west you will never have good bermuda under the shadow of your neighbor's trees. You should plan to build a flower bed in there. To the east you have the shadow of the fence to contend with. Generally bermuda needs unfiltered sun for most of the day. Any grass to the north, east, or west of any sun blocking obstacle will become thin from the shade.

What is your normal watering schedule? How often and for how long do you normally water when it isn't pouring?

[ryanlaschober]

Thanks for the help y'all,

I am in Waco. No sprinkler system so I use a Nelson Lawn Water Tractor at 1/2" twice weekly (when it is not raining).

The area along the north (bottom of photo next to roof line) of the house is the area I am most concerned with and where the following two picture were taken.

Regarding grubs: I just plugged some grass in to the area at 5-6" deep and didn't see any grubs.

[ryanlaschober]

Also, any harm in putting down prodiamine with grass like this?

[ryanlaschober]

Could there be something systemic? Two crape myrtles lost a lot of leaves today while this is not happening to anywhere else in the area. This is the grass near crape myrtles

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

Considering I'm quite a bit south of you and I only water my St Aug every other week, I'm going to repeat that you have too much water going on. Certainly the rains did not help the situation, especially given the presaturation of your soil. Let it dry out.

Your pic of the crepe myrtle is very good at showing how bermuda thins out in the shade. Between the fence and tree there is no grass. As you move out towards the sunlight, you see thin bermuda full of weeds, and eventually it's all bermuda.

The crepe myrtle looks like it is buried too low in the soil. There is no root flare showing. That's not the immediate cause of the leaf drop, but it's not a good thing, either. Soil is burying the bottom of the fence, too. Rhetorical question: Did you bring in some topdressing after the fence was built? Doesn't much matter, but there is too much soil on that side of the fence.