Take-All RR on SA?

Troz – posted 08 July 2008 11:08

I’m thinking I have found the cause of my lawn to not grow well and looking for opinions. Here is a quick synopsis of my lawn:

St Augustine lawn, NE Texas area (near Dallas), ~1300 SF lawn divided by walkway, dark clay soil, fertilize spring & fall, sugar once every two months, soil activator 2x/year, water 2x week for 45 minutes, half of lawn is full sun and other half is scattered sun from trees.

We moved into the house around this time last year and first thing we noticed is that the grass is ill. Some spots even have no grass and the trees are all overgrown not allowing sun to the ground. We called a tree company, had two large evergreens removed along with all trees trimmed to allow sunlight around fall of last year. Around the same time, we heavily raken all dead grass and planted Rye seed which as expected, lasted until spring. Since then, we have been boggled by why the lawn in front is barely growing.

We have one large area which was where one of the evergreens was that is a circle around 5′ wide with no growth. I assume that this was due to the evergreen. There are a few runners that are coming over, may 3 total. The other area that has no grass also has a few runners coming over.

I did an inspection for the usual suspects trying to figure out what is causing the problem; I couldnt find yellow spots on the leaves, yellow lines in the leaves, gooey residue on roots, etc. This left me to think a chinch problem but being we are in summer, wouldnt have all of these grubs now turned into the beetles? I then pulled a runner that had a dead-end to do an inspection of the stolon and worry that I may have TARR. Below are a few images.

Thank you.

http://i342.photobucket.com/albums/o419/djtroz/Grass/IMG_0181.jpg

http://i342.photobucket.com/albums/o419/djtroz/Grass/IMG_0186.jpg

http://i342.photobucket.com/albums/o419/djtroz/Grass/IMG_0187.jpg

http://i342.photobucket.com/albums/o419/djtroz/Grass/IMG_0188.jpg

http://i342.photobucket.com/albums/o419/djtroz/Grass/IMG_0189.jpg

http://i342.photobucket.com/albums/o419/djtroz/Grass/IMG_0190.jpg

Almaroad – posted 12 July 2008 08:54

What do you mean by TARR?

Troz – posted 12 July 2008 09:11

Take All Root Rot

landscapelifer – posted 30 August 2008 15:45

Good photography. Not real sure about Texas climate, but sure looks like the TARR, with the sheath coming off roots…withhold irrigation unless wiling use a systemic fungicide such as Subdue per labeled instructions.

saltcedar – posted 01 February 2009 15:33

Sounds like Jerry Baker school of lawn care.Try corn gluten meal instead of sugar or at leastuse molasses. Then get some replacement sod.either Palmetto St Augustine or any variety thatisn’t Raleigh (curse be upon you). That stuff (raleigh) is super prone to brown patch which is what I thinkyou’ve got owing to the fact that the stolons are still alive.Take-all usually completely kills all runners.Incidentally the organic treatment for take-all istop dressing with a 1/2 inch of (bailed) peatmoss yearly.

[This message has been edited by saltcedar (edited 01 February 2009).]