Centipede Grass Question?

BaBrister – posted 17 January 2006 21:01

I have a lawn of centipede that had the following symptom – the grass was green on the lowermost parts of the leaf, the upper part and tip were red or had red areas on each leaf. The overall effect was that the lawn looked kind of a rich brown color. It is of course dormant now. This began to show last summer after the sod was laid in the spring, and continued to get worse over the fall. The soil is largely dense clay. I watered the lawn consistently – it did not seem particularly wilted. Does anyone think this coloring was likely to be caused by lack of iron? If so, what is a good material to apply and how much? Alternatively, could it have been a lack of nitrogen or other fertilizer the most likely possibility? I don’t want this problem to re-occur when the grass comes out of dormancy. Raleigh, North Carolina.