TARR(Take-All Root Rott) in my St. Augustine Yard

brig2221 – posted 24 April 2006 16:54

I believe that I lost a considerable portion (70%) of my newly installed Palmetto St. Augustine yard to TARR (root rott). I had no idea what was going on at the end of the summer last year, but franticly doing research this year trying to determine why most of my yard is dead, I believe I came across the problem, root rott.

Anyhow, I found several articles that mentioned the use of peat moss. I also had someone look at my yard and suggested that I rake up all of the dead grass, and spread peat moss all over the yard, and that would help promote the spread of the St. Augustine grass that has not died.

Is this the best I can do besides a full re-sod? Also, what is the easiest way to spread peat moss, as I have quite a bit of territory to cover? Lastly, how much peat moss should I be putting down?

Thanks!

wdrake – posted 27 April 2006 20:14

I hesitate answering as I have similar problem with no solution. If you are interested here is background information I sent with sample to the experts at the University of Florida a couple of years ago.

They concluded I have “Take All Root Rot”; i.e., a fungus [Gaeumannomyces graminis var. graminis] that affects most if not all warm-season turfgrasses. The fungus is naturally present on grass roots and shows up primarily during the summer and early fall months when there are prolonged periods of rain. The disease is also stress related so cutting too low, over watering, too much shade, too much Nitrogen, etc probably encourages the little villains to do their dastardly deed. Best I can tell from the literature there isn’t much you can do to treat the disease. Some fungicides may help prevent it, but few offer much hope of curing it.Anyway here is the rest of the story.

Bitter Blue St Augustine:

Sod healthy, looked good, good roots; 8 pallets.

Checked with supplier in August. They had no reports of similar decline problems

Laid in mid April. Surface tilled 5 or 6 inches, leveled, and rolledSod rolled, watered and in about 2 weeks took root Once rooted; I watered only when needed.

Four weeks after laying, first sign of problem was what appeared to be dry spot, so I increased water. Problem was in deep shade so I assumed sunlight was a contributor. Maybe 40% of area died. Over next 2 to 3 weeks remaining shaded area thinned out to what it is now, maybe 50% coverage. Sometime around four to six weeks after laying, similar dry spots developed in full sun and eventually died. At first sign of problem I applied a Scotts fungicide and Diazinon. Saw no improvement in couple of weeks so I applied Daconil;. Two to three weeks; no improvement [improvement= no new infestation or areas of decline] I applied a systemic fungicide; Bayleton. and more Diazinon. Grass decline seemed to slow, but started again 3 or 4 weeks.

Hired lawn service which treated yard in July and August and twice in September. Two September treatments included spot spraying of a fungicide. They would not tell me what they were using, but advised that I not water in for 2 or 3 days so I assume it was some material designed to treat brown patch, or similar leaf (vice root) problem. During first visit in July lawn service guy identified problem as Chinch bugs and not enough water. After his first visit I increased length of watering cycle and can guarantee that at least most if not all of the area currently in decline received ¾ inch of water per week. With regard to Chinch bugs. lawn service guy showed me one or two bugs—although I could not identify them as Chinch bugs (i.e., they didn’t look like any of the life cycle stages described in the Florida Lawn Handbook). Bugs looked more like spider mites; almost round and jet-black, no white markings on wings and in fact I couldn’t see any wings. Whatever they are/were, the population was/is no more than 7 or 8 per square foot. In May and again in July I did your suggested test to flush them out with water. (Standing water in concentrated area for 5 or 6 minutes.) No Chinch bugs. Similar tests for mole crickets in May June and July yielded none. In fact I’ve only seen a half a dozen this year all in the April- May time period. In addition I have, almost daily performed ?on my knees, part the grass” examinations of three or four spots in the yard. Never seen more than one or two bugs on surface/ in thatch. Don’t see more than one Grub ever 3rd or 4th examination hole. Have not seen spittlebugs, arm worms, or anything to which I can attribute the damage.

In declining areas —Roots are gone or going—Grass stopped growing—Water stress symptoms—Grass doesn’t respond to foliage feeding or watering.Have not checked shallow (`20 ft) well for salt water intrusion, but Azaleas are doing fine and I understand they are super sodium sensitive.

Other clues:1. Property is water front (bayou) 10 – 12 feet above seal level. St Augustine at water’s edge that gets flooded once or twice a year is in much better shape than areas with “new” sod. In addition waterfront turf does not get fertilized, or irrigated.

2. In areas of decline there has been no massive invasion of weeds. There has been no recovery – once the decline begins I’ve been unable to reverse the process

3. I cut up a dozen or so sod strips and used for sprigging around the yard, essentially all of them died. Another dozen pieces of sod were used to patch bad areas in another yard (6+ miles from my house) all lived and have grown profusely.

4. Sharp mower blade. Cutting height at 3+ inches. Removed no more than 1/4th of the blade each cutting. Catch clippings.

5. Bitter Blue represent ~30% of yard. Other St Augustine turf (some adjacent to the Bitter Blue) is OK- if not outstanding

6. No blanket application of herbicides this year to declining areas

7. Obviously I didn’t re-sod areas were the grass was doing well. These have been trouble spots for past 4 or 5 years. I have attributed past poor performance of St Augustine in these areas to bad cultural practices of over watering and cutting too short.

Bill DrakeNiceville, FL 32578

brig2221 – posted 28 April 2006 17:02

I found the below article while searching, and this is how I came to the conclusion that I had TARR, take all root rott.

http://www.plantanswers.com/root_rot_fungus.htm

In the end, the best treatment was the laying of Peat Moss on the yard, which is exactly what I have done. I am hoping that by the end of the summer, I will actually have a yard again.

brig2221 – posted 22 September 2006 08:15

Well,

The Peat Moss worked wonders. I had to rake out all of the dead loose St. Augustine grass from my yard. That took like 2 days of works, and many many bags of dead raked out grass. I then purchased about 6-8 cubes of Tourbe Peat Moss, and spread it throughout the yard, fairly heavily in the areas where I raked out the dead grass.

It only took about 2 months for all of the grass to grow back. It is back and is thick as ever. Unfortunately, I am still having MAJOR problems with Bermuda in my yard.

Man, when will chemists come up with the magical anti-Bermuda formula???

Would atrazine help me knock out a lot of my Bermuda? I have been cutting my yard at the highest mover setting and have watered as much as I can. The St. Augustine has made a comeback for sure, but, I just don’t see it going from 40/60 to 80/20 or better without some help.

RickV – posted 22 September 2006 10:01

A buddy of mine used atrazine to knock down bermuda. He got it Walmart but it was just atrazine not Image. I tried image on some areas of bermuda that are not in my SA sod but in my gravel driveway, didn’t do crap. I had some bermuda in my SA but once the SA took off good it choked out the bermuda. IF you use atrazine it will stress your SA. Now is not the time to stress it. Wait until it cools off a little. I use a fertilizer with atrazine in it twice a year around October and then again in early March seems to work good for me. I live in N. Central Florida and it starts cooling off good around the middle of October and starts warming up in mid March. I try not to fertilize in the hot summer months though some may disagree it think it puts to much stress on the SA when temps are 90+. If you do use the liquid atrazine be careful. A healthly growing SA lawn should choke out most weeds including the one called bermuda grass.

hankhill – posted 22 September 2006 23:12

Bermuda is a listed turf for Image, so it’s not likely to do anything to it–at least,at levels that don’t kill your St. Augustine.

I’ve tried the Scot’s Weed & Feed with Atrazine (granular) in an area heavilyinfested with Bermuda, but it didn’t seem to do much. (Perhaps, it slowed it down.)

If you have money to burn, and you hate Bermuda as much as I do :-), you can tryPrograss next Spring. I’m going to give it a shot next year to wipe out my Bermudainfestation. BTW, the only thing I found will limit Bermuda is to water the turfevery two days in the 100deg heat of summer. When I did this, the SA grew sofast it choked out the Bermuda. When watered less often, the SA stayed green butdidn’t grow much.

[This message has been edited by hankhill (edited 22 September 2006).]

RickV – posted 23 September 2006 11:03

I bought the image to get rid of some broadleaf weeds growing in the areas I have sprigged. I thought that image had atrazine in it so I thought it would work on getting rid of bermuda. I use Bonus S in the fall and spring it seems to retard the weed and bermuda growth.

hankhill – posted 24 September 2006 22:30

It’s tough to make any claims about it working (for me) because each section of theyard is slightly different, so there’s no 1-to-1 comparison of with & without atrazine.

BTW, Make sure not to get the atrazine near any trees that you care about. I just aboutkilled a 2-3″ live oak with atrazine.

[This message has been edited by hankhill (edited 24 September 2006).]

Dan_StPete – posted 07 November 2006 15:40

Brig, I found your information very useful and after research and your reply I think I may have TAAR. I have a 2 yr old SA lawn – first year great shape, this spring – tons of rain and I got a circle of yellowing, then dead grass in shadey area. Lawn next to it flourishing. I then kept getting more yelowing then dead areas in ths sunny area. I checked and don’t believe this is bugs. Applied fungucide a few times – no effect. Also, my lawn, even when healthy, still had some very light green tips mixed in througout the yard. I think I made the mistake of applying more and more fertilzer as well to correct, which I think accelerated the probelm.

Also, noticed that where the lawn is completely dead and just dead roots remain, it is getting quickly weed infested.

What do you think? Q – did your lawn have the light green tips mixed in areas that otherwise seemed healthy?

I am about to try the peat moss. How much did you put down and how?

Any other input?

thanks

hankhill – posted 07 November 2006 16:51

Posting a picture will allow the most accurate feedback. If it’s a near perfectcircle or donut, that’s probably brown patch/brown spot, which doesn’t kill thestolons. I had that and it’s already recovered–about 4-5 weeks after I hitit with myclobutanil.

I have two spots that I think mightbe root rot; these were low points in theyard that were deep underwater in recent rains.

[This message has been edited by hankhill (edited 07 November 2006).]

Dan_StPete – posted 07 November 2006 17:32

I will try to take some photos tomorrow. The first spot was a circle, but the rest after that were more irregular in shape and the longer its been, it seems to be larger and larger irregualr patterns. I’ve have SA lawns at many properties and I’ve gotten brown patch before I believe because a fungicide knocked it out relatively easily. The difference this time is that the fungicide does nothing, in fact nothing has done anything. Also, the adjacent good lawn absolutely does not spread back into the dead spot. Weeds do, or nothing but dead roots. This is first time I’ve encountered such a bad problem where insecticide or fungicide does nothing and it seemed to match everything I’ve read about TARR, so I was thinking that might be it and am prticularly interested in trying the Peat. one question i also had was – is there any harm in trying the peat?if not I’ll probably give it a shot.

Dan_StPete – posted 09 November 2006 14:44

Dumb question but how do I insert photo – i don’t see the option?

hankhill – posted 10 November 2006 23:54

Check out the “Adding Images” section at:

https://turfgrass.com/ubb/ubbcode.html

You’ll need to put the image somewhere where it can be accessed on the internet.

Photobucket?

U_P_turf_newby – posted 12 November 2006 08:17

Can you take pictures of your lawn? TARR is very rare and would like to see it if in fact you have it.

Are the roots black?

How is your lawn doing now?

Dan_StPete – posted 15 November 2006 08:16

Took the photos but can’t post – will try again later.

Yes, the roots are darkening/black, especially at the nubs where the initial shoots start out from the main root (sorry for my terrible terminology).

From my research, TAAR is the second most common disease in St. Aug grass.

I think it is TARR based on the photos I’ve seen, descriptions on the symptoms I’ve read, and mostly the fact that nothing works to cure this problem that I’ve tried.

I raked out most of the dead roots and applied the peat moss over those areas on Saturday. I ran out so I plan to also apply peat over the areas of healthy lawn next week, as I heard should be done.

It is now getting to be the slow season for any lawn growth in Fla, so I’m thinking it may be spring before I see any results. I’ll keep you posted in any case.