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EagleLawnCareCFL

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Hi,

Appreciate any replies or advice.

I have a customer with bahia grass. Her previous company couldn't get St. Augustine grass to grow properly and ripped it all out and switched to Bahia grass. :hammerhead:

Any way, now her bahia grass in the last few weeks has thinned in spots and started turning a brown color, not yellow but brown. Our weather has been warm and sunny, not too much rain but not a drought.

Yard is located in Central Florida.

I reccomended she hire a lawn fertilization company but she didn't bite. So I told her to use a 16-4-8 fertilizer with iron and apply it, I will also skip this week of mowing to hopefully let the grass thicken again.

Cut height is 4.5 inches, cut weekly.

Her sprinklers also checked out fine.

Pics:



 
#2 ·
mole crickets, grubs, sod web worms? Shorter day light hours= lawn slowing down growth wise. Has there been any mole activity or Armadillo diggings about the lawn?. Other than a fungus or the soil PH being off now that the roots have had time to get established you have a few things to rule out before you proceed.
easy-lift guy
 
Discussion starter · #3 ·
easy-lift guy said:
mole crickets, grubs, sod web worms? Shorter day light hours= lawn slowing down growth wise. Has there been any mole activity or Armadillo diggings about the lawn?. Other than a fungus or the soil PH being off now that the roots have had time to get established you have a few things to rule out before you proceed.
easy-lift guy
Click to expand...
No sign of any moles or armadillo.
No obvious mole cricket tunnels either.
Just patches of browned and thinned grass.
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Discussion starter · #7 ·
customer denied using weed n feed since last year. Although I did see a bottle of it on the property.

I mow at 4.5 inches, I guess I could bring it up to 5

I'm gonna give it a week without cutting to see if it will thicken.

She is watering twice weekly for 45 minutes per zone.

Tomorrow I will go to my local nursery and ask for their opinion.

I visited the yard today and noticed half of a leaf was yellow and the other green. The line between green and yellow was nearly perfectly horizontal.

Some of the areas are wilting as well. The soil doesn't feel moist. Could she be over watering and this is brown patch?

I will cut it at 5 inches 2 weeks from now and see how it goes.
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#9 · (Edited)
At least with Bahia you can overseed. That's about the only way to thicken it up. Look at the website for "sod depot of tampa bay llc". It says at the bottom sod may fall apart,contain ants,weeds ot cow patties. Just to let you know what your dealing with. I hate Bahia and refuse to install it. I can barely bring myself to cut it. Pics look like failure to establish or TARR.
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#10 · (Edited)
I'm definitely leaning towards herbicide damage with those new pictures. It's tough to tell in those pictures but BP is a possibility but there's more problems than that in there. Twice a week watering on Bahia is a bit much, even with this warm weather we've had. Also looking at those pictures, it looks like you have dull blades and that's mainly grassy weeds in there, not much Bahia.
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Discussion starter · #11 ·
There probably is still some st. augustine mixed in. That is the grass she used to have.

I have not applied any herbicides except to plant beds in that yard.

I still think she might've used a weed n feed product even if she claims she hasn't.

I noticed the cut in the grass and sharpened my mower blades this evening. Ridiculous how fast they got dull.


I'm between using peat moss as a topsoil on the damaged areas, or applying 16-4-8 fertilizer with iron on the entire yard to encourage growth.


Should I tell her to cut water to once a week?
 
Discussion starter · #12 ·
Maybe I should skip mowing for 2 weeks, overseed with more bahia seed, allow to grow for several weeks, then treat with fertilizer and try to choke the out weeds?

There are tons of weeds so I'll assume the sod job wasn't done well.
 
#13 ·
If there's that much st Augustine coming through, then they probably just laid the Bahia did over what was there. That could also be part of the problem of the roots weren't able to push through everything below it. The lawn definitely needs some help. Even if they don't sign up with a company, have them call one for a free estimate. I'd call a small company with a good reputation, not one of the larger marketing companies.
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#16 ·
EagleLawnCareCFL said:
Not a whole lot of st. augustine, just patches near concrete.

Yard is mostly weeds that look like grass, some bahia, and more weeds.

Which is why I'm trying to convince her to get year round fertilization.
Click to expand...
Just remember that any St Augustine will creep over and cover the Bahia in time. Than the customer will have expensive top soil by way of the Bahia sod and she will have St Augustine again. Watering once a week as Patriot service recommended is enough this time of year as well. Beware of using iron in conjunction with concrete driveways and sidewalks. The staining can be unforgiving and the customer may have a cow in the process.
easy-lift guy
 
#17 ·
EagleLawnCareCFL said:
Not a whole lot of st. augustine, just patches near concrete.

Yard is mostly weeds that look like grass, some bahia, and more weeds.

Which is why I'm trying to convince her to get year round fertilization.
Click to expand...
Fertilizer isn't going to spread Bahia. It will require an overseeding.
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#18 ·
Your posted pictures are poor focus and hard to tell anything. Your linked pictures are neither Bahia or St. Augustine but it an undesirable. It is getting torn up by the mower blade but is also reacting to the season change and over watering. Bahia by genetics is not a green grass during the off season time. Starting now. Watering should only be a couple of times per month until it goes completely dormant once cool weather is here. At that time you will only be growing unwanted weeds. Bahia will be going dormant soon so seeding will be feeble. Wait till spring. It looks like in your first photo that there is a shadow of a yard light post close to the damaged area. If this is the case. Lights at night attract adult mole crickets. We recently had a full moon with wet conditions ( rain ). If the light was on during the full moon and the soil was moist. Mole cricket is the most likely culprit. But that activities is over now. The picture you posted of the piece of foliage is not Bahia but the brown to yellow to green is an indication of flooded foliage. Too much water to a grass that is shutting down it's growth naturally will cause this.

Over watering Bahia as in two times per week with ample rain fall will most definitely thin the Bahia and grow undesirable's. Looks like this happened.
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#19 ·
Patriot Services said:
Fertilizer isn't going to spread Bahia. It will require an overseeding.
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This is so true. Plus the fertilization program should consist mostly of iron and minimal nitrogen.
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Discussion starter · #20 ·
Ok I've told my customer to switch to 1-2 times watering a month whenever the grass is showing it needs it.

I told her the yard won't look good in the winter.

Will overseed and possibly fertilize in the spring.

Thanks for the help!
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EagleLawnCareCFL
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