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Brown area in bermuda grass

robert.myers
11 years ago

I live in North Texas, and it has been a pretty dry summer. I have my lawn on an irrigation schedule of watering 2 days a week. I cannot get the grass to grow in thick in the middle of the yard, and now it's starting to brown. There are no bare spots, but the grass just isnt as heathy or full as the other parts. Any suggestions on how I should attack this problem?

Comments (22)

  • texas_weed
    11 years ago

    It is drought stress. How do you water other than 2 times a week which is meaningless.

  • robert.myers
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I area in the picture is set to water for 20 minutes. The entire area looked as green as the outer portion of the picture all summer, but now I'm getting the browning.

  • texas_weed
    11 years ago

    That brown area wouldn't happen to be on the north side of the tree would it?

    Sill looks like drought stress and gone dormant.

  • robert.myers
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    No, it's actually on the south side. Im gonna try and water that area with the hose next week and see how it reacts.

  • nearandwest
    11 years ago

    Have you run your irrigation system manually to make sure the heads in that area are operating correctly?

    Have you tried to push a screwdriver into the ground in that area to see if the ground is hard or soft?

  • GreenGrassKat
    11 years ago

    I agree with nearandwest. If you can easily push a 6" screwdriver into the ground, your watering is okay. If not, you need to water heavily until it recovers. If the watering is okay, then you may have another problem. Chinch bugs are very tiny and hard to see, but they will cause browning that mimics drought stress. I've included a link to help you look for them. Grubs are a remote possibility, but if you have a grub problem, you should be able to grab the grass and pull it up like a carpet. Hope this helps!

    Here is a link that might be useful: Chinch Bug I.D.

  • texas_weed
    11 years ago

    Chinch bugs are very tiny and hard to see, but they will cause browning that mimics drought stress.

    I agree but Chinch bugs are not normally a problem in Bermuda grass as that is the plague of Saint Augustine and Centiwede grass. Now if you are in Florida or a neighborhood surrounded by Saint Augustine grass, then you might very well have a Chinch bug infestation.

    Pretty to check and the best method is to take a coffee can, cut the top and bottom out and sink it into the ground a couple of inches. Then fill with water and maintain the water level for 5 minutes with a couple of drops of an insecticide in it like pyrethrin. If you have Chinch bugs you will see them clearly floating on top of the water in just a few short minutes.

    But I am going to stick to my guns here and say number 1 suspect is drought stress from improper watering.

    It is a process of elimination to find the cause. As mentioned the first elimination test is for watering problem and by all means the screw driver test is fast and accurate. If that checks OK, then look for insect problem.

  • robert.myers
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I had a grub issue in mid July, but it was isolated to a couple spots in the back yard. I applied a granual that took care of that.

    Thursday after work I put my sprinkler system on test to see how my coverage was in that area. I walked out and stood right in the brown areas and got soaked, so I would say my coverage is pretty good.

    So, I think I have it down to two possible causes. The area where it starts turning brown near the top of the pic all the way to the tree is a gradual downward slope all the way to the base of the tree, so maybe the water isnt soaking in like on the flat parts of the lawn.

    My second guess is that I have too much tatch for the grass to grow in full. I picked around that entire area and it's much thinner with a good amount of mulched grass covering the soil. I am in the process of trying to find a dethatcher to rent, but it looks like I might have to go the town over to get one.

  • grasshole
    11 years ago

    How tall are you cutting the grass?

    Hard to tell from the picture, but that looks like typical end of season scalping from bermuda being cut too high.

  • robert.myers
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    The grass is cut at about two inches high. it's not even close to being scalped.

  • grasshole
    11 years ago

    When you let bermuda grass get that tall, it gets leggy and thin. If you spread the grass apart, it will be brown 1/4-1/3 of the way down underneath the grass canopy.

    I should clarify scalping since it can mean different things in different context.

    For this, I'm not talking scalping down to the dirt. I'm talking removal of the green leaves and leaving brown leggy stems behind. I bet if you look at your grass, only the top 1/4" or so is green and the remaining height is brown.

  • texas_weed
    11 years ago

    The grass is cut at about two inches high. it's not even close to being scalped.

    That is not accurate. In fact you are maintaining your Bermuda extremely high which greatly increases your chances of scalping, especially this late in the season. Get a little late on cutting just a day or two, and you will scalp the grass leaving it brown or scalped. It is very common.

  • robert.myers
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Okay, well my definition on scalping is different than yours texas-weed.

    My grass has been cut at the same height all summer and my side yard and back yard which is about 5000 sq feet all look great. This one area just cropped up at the end of August.

    If I am keeping it too long shouldnt I just wait until next spring to start cutting it shorter? It seems a little late in the season to start channing anything.

    Thanks for your help.

  • nearandwest
    11 years ago

    Did you try to push a screw driver into the ground to check for the hardness or softness of the soil. Even though you are getting adequate sprinkler coverage in that area (sorry you got soaked), if the soil in that area is hydrophobic it is not accepting water and the soil underneath will be powder dry.

  • texas_weed
    11 years ago

    Robert I am not saying scalping is your problem. What we see is either drought stress or or possibly scalping. I am sticking with my guns it is drought stress. Eliminate that possibility first with the screw driver test mentioned many times.

  • nearandwest
    11 years ago

    I must agree with TW. I do not believe that scalping is the issue here.

  • grasshole
    11 years ago

    Can we get a close up of the brown grass?

  • robert.myers
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Here are two close ups that I took this morning. The first one is from the brown area.

  • robert.myers
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    This one is from the greener more full area.

  • robert.myers
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Screw driver was easily pushed into the soil where the grass is brown and thin. It had been 3 days since the last watering too.

  • dchall_san_antonio
    11 years ago

    I'm going to go back to the watering issue. I realize you get soaked and you water 2x per week for 20 minutes. My fear is that you are watering 2 inches per week and your soil is too saturated. The screwdriver test verifies you are at least wet enough. I'm thinking you are too wet and you might have a fungal process going on. When a fungus take out your roots, they stop taking up moisture and the tops look dry.

    The only way to tell how much water you are putting out is to measure it. We normally use cat food or tuna cans. Put several out and time how long it takes to fill them. My system takes 8 hours but my neighbor's takes 20 minutes. If you are putting 2 inches of water per week, that is probably 3x more than you need right now. Normally we move from 1 inch per month in the cool months to 1 inch per week in the hottest heat of summer. But we always apply all at one time. Then we watch the grass to see if we can delay the next watering. This time of year you should be delaying and delaying more and more as the temps cool off. In the late spring you would be moving it up to increase the frequency.

  • robert.myers
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    A fungus was one of the things I first suspected. I have measured my watering amount earlier this summer. I get a little under .75 inches by watering the front zone for 20 mins. The brown area does slope down toward the base of the tree ( the front yard isnt level) so maybe more run off sitting in the low spots. When and what can I use to level that area?