Light green areas in a Fescue lawn

Solan – posted 19 August 2004 03:09

I have (along my concrete driveway) an area that’s turned a light green / yellow color. I live in Los Angeles and it’s been HOT! for weeks now. I’ve been watering my Fescue lawn everyday for 15 min. (wait an hour) then 15 more min. I had a few dry patches before adopting this watering plan. But now I’ve got this span of grass about 20 ft long and 6 inches to 1 foot wide of yellowish light green grass. Then lawn is about 1 yr old. The blades are not wilted or fragile. They’re normal in appearence (except for the color). I’ve been reading and think it may be an iron deficency. Can the watering schedule effect the iron in the soil? What do you guys think? HELP!!!

tommy – posted 19 August 2004 13:24

Most areas of your lawn are going to be way too wet with your current water schedule…..fescue doesn’t need that much water! Your dry spots are probably being caused by poor sprinkler design. Consider fixing your sprinkler coverage, and this will make it easier to have an evenly green yard without over watering. Overly soggy soil can cause yellowing, but with fescue you could probably get the color back (even in wet conditions) with an application of ‘Ironite’- combined with a balanced lawn food.

tommy – posted 19 August 2004 22:17

Ooops……before you change anything with your sprinkler system design….first reduce the number of days you water…..and see if the dry spots return. It may be that you just need to “fine tune” your watering schedule. Try watering every other day- instead of every day…….but keep the same number of run time minutes on the sprinklers. If the dry spots return, you may have to re-nozzle some sprinklers, or add one or two(sprinklers) in the dry areas.