The picture doesn't show it very well, but swaths of turf in front look as though someone took a spray can of construction orange to it. It's been dry this year, but I've never seen this before. It doesn't look good. Any ideas as to what's going on here?
Thanks for any help.
This Yellowing is either caused by a Bitch / female dog urinating on that spot, especially a bitch that has NOT been neutered.
OR Over dosage of fertilisers,
Also rubble from builders, stick a garden fork into the area and IF you are hitting stones, bricks or other rubble, that would also cause this problem with yellowing, so you need to lift up squares of the turf to remove the rubble, replace soil and the removed turf to make the area level again as by removing rubble, there will be a hollow left and cause you more problems for when mowing and water will collect.
There's diseases that CAN attack Lawns, but most eventually show either a mould growing down at the soil level, or the sheaths of grass have a pink or red look,, these are more prevalent late autumn to early spring and my own recollection was you used a mix of Benlate to water over the patches, these diseases are more prone to appear on very sandy soil.
An other thought to look at is Leather-jacks, these are the grubs of the Daddy-Long-Legs, they lay there eggs / grubs into the grass as the grubs need the tender roots of the grass and again they are more likely to show up on a more sandy soil.
After you solve the problem, make sure you feed the lawn either early spring or end of season in Early Autumn, these feed the lawn and helps it fight off any failings or diseases that are always around.
Never give a larger dose of feeds for lawns or in fact any plants, the overdose can cause the plants to collapse , remember grass is a plant like any other, but it has much shallower roots.
Look at your watering, is the grass being watered enough, drought kills off more lawns that diseases, as you have stated the weather has been very dry, I would hire one of those mechanical lawn rakes, (it's a machine like a mower BUT it has spikes instead of bladed. you can do the spiking by yourself by using the garden fork BUT have you got the time and stamina LOL.
Anyway after spiking the whole lawn, give an absolute soaking, the spiking will allow air and the water to get down to the roots, IF the dry weather continues, you will perhaps have to give water every day till the soil is like a sponge, then maybe cut back the watering gradually as you don't want the lawn to grow relying on your constant water regime.
Gave you lot's of ideas as to what Lawns need and there problems, from your picture, it's hard to see closely if it's one thing or the other so you need to watch fro birds that pick out the leather -jacks, if no birds, no Leather-jacks, diseases, several so go outside and look right down into the grass, use fork to find buried objects, if none move onto looking at the watering and feeding you have done or NOT.
There will be an easy solution IF you find the exact problem.
Good luck, hope this is resolved soon before the problem spreads to larger areas.
Kindest Regards.
WeeNel.
A large circle of all-dead with a richer green circle is often dog urine- highly concentrated it kills. More diluted (the outer ring of green) it is fertilizer.
There are several diseases that kill in a more or less circular patch, too. Some more colorful than others.
Individual blades being colored intense orange is much more likely rust- a common problem on many species of grass.
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7497.html
I know you're from another country WeeNel, but female dog would have sufficed........
Males, too, if they squat, and they do.
Thanks for bringing that to my attention Sequoiadendron always good to stand corrected, Yes I know I live in a different country because it's always picked up by accent that I'm from Scotland. The folks in USA are always friendly when they hear the accent. and I'm in USA frequently. However here in UK, a female dog that has NOT been dresses / sterilised, causes the problems because the urine is stronger more acidic (naturally to attract the male dogs, However, you might have different dogs that I dont know about but always happy to learn about new things.
have a great gardening season and best Regards.
WeeNel.
Well, I don't fertilize, it's not in a circular pattern, but it is individual blades, so it sounds like rust. Thank you all. Do I need to do something, non-chemical?
If the season is right, then get the lawn growing well, and you might just mow off enough of the reproductive parts of the rust that you get the upper hand. This is easy to do in (all-too) sunny CA, might be harder to do if you are in a wetter part of OR. The fungus will keep on spreading onto the new growth.
You can look into natural fungicides. Just remember that the 'natural' or 'organic' fungicides can be just as bad as the 'chemical' or 'man made' fungicides. For example, copper is often used as a fungicide, and considered 'organic', but it lingers in the soil, and can kill snails and other small things.
Baking soda can help against certain fungi (I do not know if it works against lawn rust), but the build up of carbonates in the soil can make it more alkaline. This is not usually a problem if the treatment is just done once, maybe twice a year, but more often is harder for the soil chemistry to deal with.
Got it. Thank you. I won't be using fungicides, at least not yet.
Here's a question: what would flaming do? Send the spores popping and flying all over my neighbors' lawns? I don't mean setting the turf alight, just using the flame dragon with water to blacken and shrivel the grass, which I don't care about but am not ready to remove the remainder of yet.
Flameing to my mind is a bit severe for a patch of grass that has turned yellow, I think you will have less control over the size of patch you burn, toy will prob kill all the roots and perhaps, due to your mention of very dry weather, you could cause the burn to spread OR get out of hand,
Have you watered the lawn yet, have you watered the patch that MAY be suffering from dog ,fox, or other animal toileting the spot, once they do that, they usually go back again and again. have you checked way down in the grass leaf what there is on show like mould, red / brown blades of grass, any of there things will show up and THEN use the proper cure for the problem, BUT I would NOT set fire to the problem patch of lawn just because it sounds like the easiest way to go.
There as as many cures for the problems that lawns have and they dont ALL require chemicals,
IF this patch offends so much then maybe you can cut a cirle around the outer perimiter of the grass, dig up the yellow patch, water well and after several days, fill the hole with new soil and re-sow with grass seed.
My immediate way to go would be to absolutely soak the lawn, as you mentioned you have had such dry weather of ages, the real problem could be drought.
Hope this gives you some encouragement to try other things before you take the flame gun to the lawn.
Good luck, Best Regards
WeeNel.
Do your shoes pick up the orange color if you walk through the grass? If so, it's definitely rust.
A method commonly recommended is to use a high nitrogen fertilizer to help it grow out and mow frequently until it's gone, but collect the orange grass blades in a bag and get rid of them rather than letting them stay on the lawn. Also, don't use that grass for compost until all the orange is completely gone.
We've had good luck with the above method when we've had occasional problems with rust in late summer. If you don't want to use a chemical fertilizer, use what you're comfortable with (or nothing), but still mow frequently until it's gone, disposing of the infected grass blades.
If the ultimate goal is to remove the lawn then ignore the rust. It only infects grass, and the spores are all around. Your lack of control of them, or any attempted control will not affect your neighbors' lawns.
If you practiced perfect control, then their lawns could get infected from somewhere else.
If you did nothing, then sure there are a few more spores drifting around, but it is not significant.
Ok great, we'll be mowing. Yes, my shoes pick up the Orange. Thanks everybody. Good to get the perspective on my neighbors too.
