St. Augustine TARR in San Antonio?

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escarpa sur
Posts: 2
Joined: April 8th, 2021, 9:53 pm
Location: Hollywood Park, Texas (north-central San Antonio)
Grass Type: St. Augustine (Floratam?)
Lawn Size: 10000-20000
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St. Augustine TARR in San Antonio?

Post by escarpa sur » April 9th, 2021, 11:08 am

Hello ATY-ers,

Long-time lurker/reader, first time poster. Fiancee and I just moved into our new house here in Hollywood Park (north central San Antonio) and I'm afraid I may have some fairly advanced take-all root rot (TARR) occurring within my half-moon shady hell strip in between my circle drive and the road (pics attached). The rest of the lawn appears to be waking up nicely from our February ice apocalypse as you can see in the pics...

I am a believer in dchall's method of deep, infrequent watering but due to the ongoing remodel I am just now learning my new irrigation system (previous owner's irrigation program was 3 days/week for 10-20 min/zone all year around) :banghead:

I have adjusted the watering schedule to a deep, infrequent watering and have verified I'm getting down 1" water/once per week using tuna cans for the last 3 weeks now. As stated above, the St. Augustine is greening up very nicely except for this circle drive hell strip area.

I have done some pretty heavy reading on St. Augustine TARR both here (and that other site), as well as Neil Sperry's site and feel pretty confident that it is probably TARR.

I haven't had time to get a Logan Labs soil test done yet, but it is on my immediate to-do list (along with 10000 other things during this remodel!). If you are familiar with SA area, I'm basically right on the southern edge of the Hill Country (southern escarpment) on Edwards Limestone bedrock with very thin, high-alkaline soil. I've counted 55 trees on the 0.6 acre property with at least 45 of those being escarpment live oaks that are very common in this area (smaller than southern live oak, prefers thinner rockier soil).

What do you guys think? TARR or not? Thanks in advance! Glad to (officially) be a part of the ATY community.
Here are the pics:
Image

escarpa sur
Posts: 2
Joined: April 8th, 2021, 9:53 pm
Location: Hollywood Park, Texas (north-central San Antonio)
Grass Type: St. Augustine (Floratam?)
Lawn Size: 10000-20000
Level: Some Experience

Re: St. Augustine TARR in San Antonio?

Post by escarpa sur » April 9th, 2021, 11:47 am

more pics

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cjac9chris
Posts: 46
Joined: December 27th, 2020, 12:46 am
Location: North Central San Antonio, TX
Grass Type: St. Augustine
Lawn Size: 1000-3000
Level: Some Experience

Re: St. Augustine TARR in San Antonio?

Post by cjac9chris » April 12th, 2021, 9:10 pm

I'm not far from you. I'm in Castle Hills. Looks like root rot to me.

Obviously once a week is better than that 3x a week nonsense the previous owner was doing but it's still too often for most of the year. David can clarify but I think it's once a month with temps below 70, once every three weeks with temps in 70s, twice a month with temps in 80s and once a week for 90s and above.

This past week we shot into the 90s so I definitely watered but that was the first time I watered since mid-March. I *might* water this week but will make the call the morning before my watering day. If the grass is looking stressed, I will. If not, I'll go another week. Manual watering is much better. I mean use your system but be the one that decides if it runs or not.

Then add to that all the shade from the oak trees and you need to double all the lengths between waterings up to account for the lack of evapotranspiration on a shaded lawn. Maybe David can clarify that?

As for treatment, it's applying whole ground cornmeal. I like Locke Hill Feed over near of Huebner and I-10. I think it's like $12 for 40#.

My lawn is full sun thanks to the dreaded oak wilt...

P.S. If you see any dead oak trees when you're driving around your neighborhood, it's time to get an Alamo Propiconazole injection in at least your most valuable oaks if not all of them to protect them against oak wilt. Dayton Archer aka The Tree Doctor did mine but lots of arborists can do it. David Vaughn, a local arborist, recommends treating with a corn meal tea in addition to the fungicide for added benefit. Yep, fungus and cornmeal. It's a thing.

Anyway, when live oaks get infected they go pretty fast (red oaks go even faster) but as long as they still have 30% of the canopy an injection should bring them back slowly. Much better to prevent with an injection if you can though.

I noticed my neighbor's thinning canopy and veinal necrosis leaves in the fall and let them know they need to get an injection ASAP or their tree will die. They said they'd get around to it. It was dead by New Years. And now they're losing the one next to it too. Big, beautiful, OLD oak trees that will now cost at least 10x the injection once you add up removal, stump grinding, moving and replacing all the shade plants that are now in full sun, higher energy costs, etc.

And the property value! You can find tree value calculators that will show you how much each of your trees is worth and then compare the cost of injection to that.

The other thing about oak trees is they all form part of one big canopy and don't really stand alone. When you lose some but keep others they look really funky aka my backyard now.

Okay, sorry for the doom and gloom! I just really wish someone had informed me more before I lost some trees. All I was told was to paint my cuts which is basically pointless advice anyway because oak wilt spreads through the roots in live oaks. But yeah, basically carpet bomb your entire property with corn meal, treat your trees with fungicide and water less! Go ahead and plant some other trees to for diversity. The reason the oaks are all dying is because they're basically a monoculture. Same reason TARR can wipe out St. Augustine lawns so easily.

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Dchall_San_Antonio
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Re: St. Augustine TARR in San Antonio?

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » April 13th, 2021, 5:03 pm

I'm not a TARR expert by any means. Your pix look like my grass only nicer. I would be putting down corn meal if I thought I had a disease, but I think it's just cold damage. I was going to put down alfalfa, but I have a bag of corn and can do that just as easily. Maybe I'll learn something.

I have not watered my lawn in Bandera yet, but I'm thinking about it. Last night's projected thunderstorm fizzled out.

We are house hunting in north central SA, but mostly inside 410. This past weekend we did look north of the airport and also west of 281 just to get a feel for those neighborhoods. We were hoping to get away from the deer, so inside the loop still looks better to us.

My understanding is that oak wilt is also spread by a beetle that travels from tree to tree looking for sap. If it gets oak wilt disease on it and travels to find sap on an open wound, it can pass the disease "through the air" like that. That is the reason for painting where you cut limbs back. However, there are plenty of ways for the tree to get damaged enough for sap to be exposed. A normal windy day will swing branches around and break the tender new growth.

cjac9chris
Posts: 46
Joined: December 27th, 2020, 12:46 am
Location: North Central San Antonio, TX
Grass Type: St. Augustine
Lawn Size: 1000-3000
Level: Some Experience

Re: St. Augustine TARR in San Antonio?

Post by cjac9chris » April 13th, 2021, 9:39 pm

Dchall_San_Antonio wrote:
April 13th, 2021, 5:03 pm
My understanding is that oak wilt is also spread by a beetle that travels from tree to tree looking for sap. If it gets oak wilt disease on it and travels to find sap on an open wound, it can pass the disease "through the air" like that. That is the reason for painting where you cut limbs back. However, there are plenty of ways for the tree to get damaged enough for sap to be exposed. A normal windy day will swing branches around and break the tender new growth.
That's how the red oaks typically get them but with live oaks, it travels through their interconnected root system at about 150 ft. per year. Even Monterrey Oaks which are resistant can get it if they somehow graft to a live oak root underground.

I'd heard all about the beetles too and I get why they tell you to paint wounds but once I actually got a tree that got sick and started talking to arborists, they were all like, "yeah, the beetles aren't really a concern. I mean, go ahead and paint your cuts if it makes you feel better but it's traveling through the roots." Even my friend who is the city forester said that and yet the city sends out door hangers to infected areas that say "paint your cuts!"

This is really the case for good ol' door-to-door sales people. If some old school, fear-mongering, ex-smoke alarm and fire extinguisher salesman had come and scared the crap out of me so I'd buy a preventative treatment, I'd still have my trees and he could've made a nice little commission on treating all my oaks. Maybe I should start that business? :P

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