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Sun, Jul 24, 11 at 11:41
| I live in Wisconsin. We've been going through a pretty big heat wave here. Temperatures in the 80s and 90s and it even hit 100 a couple days. I was leaving out of town for a couple days so I asked my wife to water the lawn while I was gone. She watered the lawn at night for an hour each night on a timer. When I returned my front lawn where she was watering looked worse like it was dieing. After a day or two it is completely brown in an erratic pattern covering probably 30-40% of the front lawn. It almost looks as if a chemical was spilled on it. The rest of the front lawn looks healthy and green. I researched brown spot since it seems like the conditions might be perfect for it here and we watered the lawn in the evening which seems to be a definite no no now, and we probably over watered it. But when I took a picture of it to a local store to ask their opinion they said there is no way it could be brown spot and they believe it to be chemical as if someone did it on purpose to us. I have a hard time believing this as we get along with all of our neighbors and have never had any problems like this in the past. I believe it may be a disease and had something to do with over-watering but I'm not sure. I'm looking for any assistance anyone can provide as far as what the next steps I should take would be. I was thinking of renting an aerator and aerating the lawn again and then re-seeding hoping it will come back without too much work, but I'm not sure if that is the right answer especially if it is chemical. Thoughts? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Without a picture it would be hard to tell. It certainly can be a fungal disease however. A big no no is watering at night. Watering at night, during the summer, means your grass is wet for a long time. This is a perfect environment for fungal disease. Brown patch is a common one for tall fescue lawns, much less so on Kentucky bluegrass. Bluegrass suffers from Summer patch. Pythium blight is another disease that can spread during the summer with wet grass. Watering is best done in the morning right before sunrise. |
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- Posted by dchall_san_antonio 8 San Antonio (My Page) on Sun, Jul 24, 11 at 15:31
| Regardless of what it was, you need a recovery plan. I suspect it was a disease caused by overwatering repeatedly at night. The time to fix this is approaching. When your nighttime temps start to drop again after the summer heat - that is the time. What kind of grass did you have? It almost certainly is either fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, or a mix of the two. |
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| Thanks for the feedback. The grass was a mix of fescue, bluegrass and ryegrass. I wish I could upload a picture so you could see it. Is there a way you can on this forum that I'm not seeing? As for a recovery plan...what would that be? Would I need to completely tear out the old grass and start over or could I simply aerate and over-seed. Also specifically when should I do this? I'm thinking late August to mid-September? As for shade, my lawn is partially shaded, we live in an area with large old oak and maple trees. Thanks for your help. |
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