SODinJAX – posted 04 April 2003 11:46
Hello,We layed St. Augustine sod last weekend and we live on the outskirts of Jacksonville, Florida. It has turned from green to a yellowish/brown. We water once a day for 10 minutes. We had one semi-moderate rainfall this week.Is this normal? Will our grass return to green?
seed – posted 06 April 2003 08:08
SODinJAX, this may be unusual. New St. Augustine sod typically wilts for a few days, and will look grayish, and about 7 days after planting it should be green all day long. Yellow and brown are not good colors. Check your sprinkler output. If those are rotary sprinklers, they might not put out more than an inch or so per hour, less if they are poorly distributed. For daily irrigation of new sod, the goal is to replace water lost by the plant, no more than 1/4-1/2 inch per day in the driest times, or saturate to wet the root zone every other day, or no more than 3/4 inches.
If you see yellow and brown that has a pattern, e.g., just the corners of the sod pieces, or whole brown pieces of sod next to whole green pieces, the pattern is consisent with some kind of problem associated with the sod itself, e.g., dessication or overheating on the pallets. If St. Augustinegrass sits more than about 3 days on a pallet, especially if it’s very wet, it will be deteriorated, but might snap out of it soon. If it sits about a week, there won’t be much left of it. But that’s not to imply that that might be the problem, rather, to remind you that things that happen inside the sod stack will not have an even effect, but will affect more the sod pieces on either the inside or the outside, depending on the effect, and that will result in some kind of pattern on the ground.
Phil
ted – posted 07 April 2003 17:29
if you’re watering the whole lawn for 10 minutes a day, you’re probably not putting down enough water, depending on the size of your lawn. you also may have an issue with your contractor
kylewee – posted 12 May 2012 22:05
Its best to water the grass frequently throughout the day (3-4 times) but for short intervals (5-10 min) for the first 7-10 days more info http://landimpressions.com/establishing_sod.html Good Luck!