[Nt7]

Long time lurker, first post. I renovated my back yard and put new sod down in 2016. Leveled it last year. Over seeded both winters. It was looking pretty good up to two weeks a go. I was hand watering brown spots, as I have some shallow rocks and roots under part of the lawn. I fertilized and cut as normal (2x week, 5/8). It seemed I developed a fungus all at once and it spread rapidly. Last week I sprayed some Bayer bioadvanced Fungus Control. It seems to have stopped the the damage, but wow! This is Tifway 419 in Phoenix.

 

[Nt7]

Any advice on what the hell I did wrong here? I water every 3 days at 1". It's been around 105 to 110 highs for a couple of weeks now. Low humidity though 😁

 

[randy]

I'm a noob, but my guess is you got hit with a fungus. Though, the only hesitance I have with saying that is how hot it's been. My experience with fungus has always been in spring or fall when rain + clippings = fungus. Have you been water at night or morning?

 

[Nt7]

Yea, I water from 5 to 7 am, so I don't think that's a factor. It's funny, I cycle a lot, and as I ride around my area, I've noticed just about every Bermuda lawn has this issue, in one way or another. Of course, practically every home in Scottsdale has a landscaper that mows with a rotary mower and doesn't really give a shit about the health of the lawn, so who knows?

 

[FATC1TY]

I mean... temps are hot with no humidity, but N inch every 3 sounds kind of.... excessive maybe??

Hard to correlate. We are 90ish with 90 plus humidity and input down like inch a week maybe, depending on rain fall.

Looks like a fungus or some stress.

 

[Nt7]

Yea, we've had one day of rain in 6 months this year! I think the problem I have is part of the lawn has roots and rock 4" under the surface and the other parts are pretty good. That's why I was hitting dry spots with a hose which is what I suspect caused the fungus. I'm almost thinking I should go to 3/4 inch every other day, even though every thing I've read says that incorrect?

 

[440mag]

Good points thus; and I'll add: Never hurts to pull a couple frisbee sized "discs" of dirt up - say, 3-4" from just around the edges and including green grass - can be amazing what one sometimes finds under the surface, just munnnnnnnchin' away on all them tender, juicy roots!

Afterthought Edit: Dannnnnng, that "before" photo is, well, inspiring!

 

[Nt7]

So, I put both ImidaPro 2SC and Talastar down, so I have the munchers under control. But yea, it makes me cry to see how it looks now 😢

 

[Bradymco11]

I live in AZ and same thing happened to me that same week. I think I finally figured out it was the very last of the rye grass that had been hanging on late in the season. It all finally died and left some bare spots. Bermuda filled in the bare spots two weeks later.

Did you overseed with rye this past winter? And is that spot a little more shaded that would've allowed the rye grass to survive longer?