What happened to this lawn?

[jondcoleman]

Can someone help me out here? Any ideas? Thanks!

[PR Fect]

How about a little history? How fast did this damage accrue? Over what period of time. Where is this damage and how much of the lawn has it? It looks like its in the shade of a tree. What has been applied to the lawn? Is it an irrigated property? What type of use does the lawn see? Dog? Kids? Who mowes it and how often? What type of grass is it? Looks like bluegrass, perennial rye mix.

[sclawndr]

Looks like summer patch.

[RAlmaroad]

I was thinking recent meteor showers...

[RigglePLC]

Spot in front of statue looks a little different than the rest.

Otherwise it looks to me like drought burnout. Followed by a few days of rain and partial recovery. We have lots of lawns like this, especially in sunny areas. Usually it looks ok in the shade on the north side of the house.

[americanlawn]

Looks like what we're seeing.......old drought damage on Kentucky bluegrass. Reason I say this is cuz the grass that survived is nice & green (so you are doing your job properly). Looks like new grass plants emerging as well. I'm guessing lack of water plus low mowing earlier this summer, so the homeowner did not do his part. If he cancels, so be it. we took 3 cancellations this week because of "summer burnout" due to low mowing, and that's fine by me, cuz we don't need idiots that keep mowing under two inches and never water.

[mkroher]

Looks like summer patch.

I second that.

[turfsolutions]

Whatever happened is ancient history now unless it is grubs which you can tell with a shovel and your eyeballs. What needs to be done is to aerate, overseed, starter fert, and water water water.

[jondcoleman]

How about a little history? How fast did this damage accrue? Over what period of time. Where is this damage and how much of the lawn has it? It looks like its in the shade of a tree. What has been applied to the lawn? Is it an irrigated property? What type of use does the lawn see? Dog? Kids? Who mowes it and how often? What type of grass is it? Looks like bluegrass, perennial rye mix.

This damage seemed to happen over the summer and is in the front lawn that gets a lot of sun. I have applied two applications of .5 lbs nitrogen in the spring (march, may) and one app of .75 nitrogen in mid July. I blanket sprayed it with Momentum FX herbicide in May and spot sprayed in July. We had an extreme drought in August and the homeowner claims to water it but I don't know how often. No dogs and no kids. We mow it weekly (3.5 during the summer). Don't know what type of grass it is (I was assuming tall fescue just because that it the majority around here but I haven't inspected it. I'm not experienced in identifying grass types but will check it out next time i'm there.) What makes you think that it is the bluegrass, perennial rye?

Does fertilizer and then drought increased the chance of burnout?

Is summer patch a disease and what causes it?

Thanks for all the help! I hope I can be a help to some of you all too sometime!

Jon

[RigglePLC]

They always claim they water it. If it looks better in the shade it is lack of water. I was thinking it was rye grass. Fairly narrow leaf blade. Does not stand heat, if dry. Rye has no rhizomes so it cannot creep back in to fill in bare spots.

Tall fescue is more persistant in the heat. Wider leaf blade. Prominent veins in leaf.

Ask to see the guys water bill. Compare with your own. Does he own a hose?

[americanlawn]

They always claim they water it. If it looks better in the shade it is lack of water. I was thinking it was rye grass. Fairly narrow leaf blade. Does not stand heat, if dry. Rye has no rhizomes so it cannot creep back in to fill in bare spots.

Tall fescue is more persistant in the heat. Wider leaf blade. Prominent veins in leaf.

Ask to see the guys water bill. Compare with your own. Does he own a hose?

NO SH$T.........good point Riggle! I always compare shade areas verses hot afternoon sun areas. Then there's the perfect straight line between properties where one guy mows short and the other one doesn't.....that's a no-brainer, but customers don't always see the light -- most try to blame our slow-release fertilizer that we apply once every two months.

On a pleasant note: my last stop today.........I treated a gorgeous lawn///nice & green, lush, and no weeds. He mows at 3 1/2 inches all year long. His neighbors on both sides have crappy lawns with dead areas & ground ivy.

Our estimate forms state, "Mowing is the Key to a Nice Lawn". So many customers "dropping the blade now",:nono: and I don't understand.:confused:

[donal]

Hydrophobic dry patch. In the areas that are burnout, these would have had a very dry core sample, the green area would have been damp. Even heavy irrigation cannot overcome this, needs an application of a wetting agent at an earlier stage when it was seen it was wilting bad

[upidstay]

Could be lots of things that caused it. Not trying to be a smart alec, but it looks like the grass died. Causes could be insect, disease., chemical burn, fert burn, soil anomaly, etc.

I had a lawn customer who had chronic dead patch right outside their kitchen door. We reseeded with different varieties, treated it preventativly for bugs, disease. Dug the soil out 4" and brought more in. Grass would come in and the die, in a wierd pattern in roughly the same spot. I was there mowing one day and saw the cleaning lady toss her bucket of used floor cleaner out the back door after mopping the kitchen floor. She was from Poland, and that's the way they do it there I guess. Always tossed it in the same spot every time she mopped. It was death by Mr Clean.

Had another lawn (my sisters, actually) with 5 small spots that would brown out and die every summer. Lawn was new and the baby grass couldn't take it. Turned out there was a huge, irregularly shaped boulder under the surface. Did some probing and found soil between 1" and 18" deep before I hit the rock. They're going to put a raised bed in instead.

The point to all of these stories? The dead grass could have been caused by virtually anything, and the only way you can find the cause is to dig around and observe. Dig in the thatch for chinch bugs, sod web sorm. Are there grubs? What's the weather been like? Hazy hot and humid equals disease. If there's a dead weed in the center of the dead patch, did they over spray herbicide? Or use Round Up? Do they have a dog, or a Polish cleaning lady perhaps?

Good luck.

[WildLake]

Based on my props, I'd say you lost your K.bluegrass and/or rye because of our weather this summer. That July N didn't help things. With our summers, I stick to N twice in late fall and once with high slow release N in March, never after April. Overseeding this fall would be my advice.

[Daner]

It Dosent look like Drought to me...Look how green the rest of the grass Is
I Would look at those bad spots real close...see if the bugs are dineing out on the lawn.

[americanlawn]

Kentucky bluegrass often dies out in sunny/drought conditions, but it is a very "forgiving" grass as it often tries to regrow new plants when conditions improve. How much will it pread & fill back in by late spring of 2008 is questionable. I also think core aeration is good advice cuz the picture shows tight areas where the homeowner probably walks alot to maintain the landscape beds. Tall fescue might be a better solution in this area???

[PR Fect]

Jon, it sounds like you did everything right. You may have not needed the summer app of fert, but .75 lb of slow release should have not been a big factor. Yes summer patch is a disease. You would need to spray a fungicide to kill it. I would guess it was summer patch, chinch bug, leafhopper, sod webworm, or some other bug or fungi. Healthy well maintained grass just does not die because it gets hot or dry. It goes dormant and can take quite a bit till its environment changes. It looks allot like the grasses we have here in Wisconsin, is why I said it looked like rye and bluegrass. And the others are right, tall fescue will take more of that kind of abuse than the bluegrass/rye. Turfsolutions said it best. What killed it looks to be gone, time to aerate, overseed, fert, water, water,water. PR

[jondcoleman]

Thanks for everyone's help. Next time I am at the property I may do a little more research but for now, I seeded the areas and told the homeowner to water.

[LIBERTYLANDSCAPING]

RigglePLC

Ask to see the guys water bill. Compare with your own. Does he own a hose?

Wow, that's pretty bold. I'd say you would piss off a custome & possibly lose them if you asked that. That would be great advice if he was a detective investigating a crime. Things like that don't go well to building a trusting customer relationship.:hammerhead: Why don't you just call the customer a liar to his face....:dizzy:

[RigglePLC]

I try to be diplomatic. Blame the weather, not the customer. I know what dry grass looks like. But if he insults me or gets obnoxious...

The problem is, our water bills come every three months. It is often long after the fact. Hydroseeding companies deal with exaggerated customer watering all the time. They learn to deal with it.

[topsites]

We mow it weekly (3.5 during the summer).

There's your problem, I'm surprised it didn't burn the entire lawn, that guy must've watered pretty heavy for it to stay that green under the stress of weekly cuts. It just amazes me how many supposed experts here go right out and cut it weekly season-round, with an apparent total disregard towards any external factors such as the weather.

I'm even more amazed the customer doesn't get upset.
This isn't like a car that someone cares about so much they wash and wax it every 3 days.
That's insane but the car doesn't care.
This, however, is a plant we're talking about.

Didn't you ever notice it doesn't grow as much in summer?
Doesn't it turn brown when you cut it that often?
Don't the customers get on you when you keep showing up?
Don't they ever wise up to this?

Come on guys, seriously, before you ever got into this business, when was the last time
you heard about a lawn being cut every week in the middle of summer?
Maybe from another fool Lco, but did you ever cut it that much?
Then why now, what made the lawn change its need for a higher cut frequency?

Y'all done lost your minds.

[jondcoleman]

Yeah, you may be right in a lot of ways but it is the customer's choice. We don't require that they get service every week. We leave that up to them. I have considered doing something else but haven't quite figured out what to do.

Do you put all your customers on a 10 day or a biweekly during the summer? Do you monitor every individual lawn for how often it should be cut? I feel like that would take a lot of time and money if you have a lot of accounts. I am not in the field mowing everyday so I don't know the status of the lawns. Some lawns that are irrigated do need weekly service during the summer. I am open to other options. Anybody else, what's you're opinion?

I have many other lawns that we cut every week that aren't in bad shape like this one.

Thanks for your input....always wanting to learn!

Jon

[PR Fect]

This should be a whole new thread. It may depend on how you invoice. Now before you go banana's again about what is best for the grass plants, think about it. We bill for every mow. And yes we know when the rotation is every 5 days, when it stretches out to every 7, and in mid summer it goes to 15 to 20. Never more than 20. Its not that hard to do. The grass gets cut when it most needs it (1/3 rule), and the more it grows the more we make. But what if you did a year long set bid and you get the same payment for servicing the property each month? What if the client tells you they only what 20 "cuts" a season? What if you have mostly mowing work and do not have shrub trimming, weed spraying, aeration, or other things to do too fill in the schedule when not mowing? PR