Discolored or yellowing St. Augustine Grass

EvilJ – posted 12 August 2005 06:37

I have attached a link to pictures of what is concerning me… Although, for the most part (to me) my yard looks great… But, as the grass grows after mowing, a yellowing discoloration begins to appear. I have read about SAD and also about dog urine damage. Now…. This yard has seen many years of dog urine. It was my in-laws house before mine and for years they had dogs doing their deed in it. Now I have 3 cats, 3 dogs and these ugly discolored areas. Could someone please let me know whether I am dealing with urine damage or SAD.Thanks in advance

[url=http:http://phattater.com/YardDamage/YardDamage.htm[/url]

EvilJ – posted 12 August 2005 07:13

Sorry about the link… Here it is again[url=http://phattater.com/YardDamage/YardDamage.htm[/url]

QWERTY – posted 12 August 2005 22:59

It could be iron deficiency. The link you gave us, the pictures didnt show up on my screen for some reason??? Google SAD. There should be pictures…. Urine damage is where you see small yellow spots damaged by dogs. I’ve seen it happen alot. Iron deficiency is more of wide spread of yellowing. SAD, does your neighbors have these problems? It can spread by using same lawnmower from yard to yard. It happens from lawn services…

EvilJ – posted 13 August 2005 05:21

I don’t notice the same problem in the neighbors yards. I will work on fixing those links. It is definitely NOT small patches… Could it have something to do with all my yard trees being Palms? I know that palms crave iron. Could they be taking it from the yard? Should I suppliment MORE iron when fertilizing?

EvilJ – posted 13 August 2005 07:12

Try this linkphattater.com/YardDamage/YardDamage.htm Again, this is seen 99.9% in the back yard. I do not notice anything major in the front. The back has a LOT of palm trees where as the front has many, but they are all young. Thanks for the help!

Tungsten33333 – posted 13 August 2005 22:18

I didnt know palm trees need a lot of iron.

To tell you the truth, it doesn’t look as bad as you made it sound. I don’t know about you but i practice organic yard care so in this case I’d put down 40lbs of Texas Greensand which is 20% iron, per 1000sqft for my newly SA sodded backyard due to alkaline soil in Dallas-FtWorth area.

Where do you live?What is your watering habit?Do you practice organic yard care or use chemical stuff? I didnt have much choice but use organic stuff since my house is a brand new and the builder didnt really do much for the yard. no topsoil at all so I have to rebuild it the nature way. Using chemical stuff won’t work at all to improve the fertilty of the soil.Which variety of SA do you have? Mine’s Palmetto variety. What’s your cutting height? It should be 3 inches. if yours a semi dwarf SA type (mine is), you probably could go as low as 2.5 inches, other wise at least 3 inches.i’m currently cutting at 3.5 inches to promote deeper root system development.

It could be your dogs running around and messing it up a bit. I ve had dogs before so the backyard wasnt always great looking like the front yard.

EvilJ – posted 14 August 2005 05:51

I do use Chemical Fertilizer. I have been using Scotts Bonus S. It was working well for a while, but now I have a lot of Global Sedge and Dollar weed. I believe that our turf is flortam, but I cannot be absolutely certain. I live in Florida and the house is 20 yrs old. I was told that in Fl, flortam is the most widely used SA turf, so I am really only guessing. I have my gutting hight set to 3 inches at this time. In some areas, it looks like I have lost a lot of SA turf and some really skinny weedy looking grass is growing there. I bought Image weed killer, but have not had the gut to put it down. I read that it can brown the yard and REALLY would rather NOT do that to it. What is good for weeds? Like I said, the weed and feed WAS doing well, now the global sedge has gone crazy and yet, the dollar weed has slowed… I water 3 days a week (mon., Wed, Fri.) BUT we do end up getting torrential downpours that can drop as much as 3-4” of standing water in my back yard. The soil at my location is always VERY wet and it is a very dark black color. All trees seem to do VERY well in it, but the wetness is quite bad in some areas. I have had an Areca Palm sink about 3’ into the ground in one spot….Thank you all for your help so far… I think I will try the organic feeds to see if it helps with the discoloration…

SteveH – posted 14 August 2005 17:46

I have the same problem right now! I live in central Texas, I recently fertilized with some king of Bayer, with weed killer in it, but it said it was ok for SA grass. But it sure tured yellow

EvilJ – posted 15 August 2005 04:51

hmmm… that makes me wonder. I usually use Scott’s bonus S on the yard and have never had a problem, but I DID use Bayer complete bug killer… The grass did the yellowing after that… SO….. Oh yeah, and I am still infested with fire ants… Funny thing is, they don’t seem to have noticable hills… They just attack you when you are walking around….

Tungsten33333 – posted 15 August 2005 09:58

That’s a lot of watering. A rule of thumb is one inch of water (combined rain and irrigation) a week is plenty. During lack of rain period, one hour of watering PER week is enough. What you’re doing is promoting shallow root growth and weed growth too. Weed loves frequent watering. Floratam is very commonly used in florida past 20,30 years. The drawbacks are that it doesnt have much of cold tolerant or shade tolerant compared to Palmetto variety. Floratam is full sized SA so keep 3 inches a minimum in full sun and 3.5 in shade. it seems more and more are in florida are switiching to Empire Zoysia.

www.dirtdoctor.com is a good place to learn about organic stuff. using chemical stuff will destroy the soil and you don’t want that. Kinda like giving steriods to your kids. Would you do that? I suspect it’s the chemical products that you are using are making SA weak and more prone to disease esp fungus (brown spot). I use corn meal to prevent that. To prevent germination of weed seeds, i use corn GLUTEN meal but it’s a bit tricky. You have to figure out the window of time to apply that or you’d have weeds growing too well because it’s high in nitrogen. Organic yard care is probably the way to go anyway. They promote healthy soil, keep weeds under control, keep grasses healthy, help absorb more water (microbes areate the soil deeply so the water tend to drain deeper which in turn helps the grass roots grow deeper). Chemical stuff is nothing more than quick fixes but doesnt solve long term problems and they ruin environment unfortunately.

I read that spreading dried molasses around the yard will keep ants away. Orange oil will kill them on contact (i tried it and it works). All the info is at dirtdoctor.com.