Lawn suffering

[claudia.price]

I have yellow patches of brown turf that never did come back from the winter. It is not an even patch but spread through the lawn in various places. Took soil sample to country extension office and they said to cut back on water. I would do this except my lawn in that particular area is showing signs of stress with the gray casting going on which tells me it is not getting enough water. Anyone know what this is. I did put a fungicide down last week so we'll see about that. We have one of those underground watering drip systems that do not have the sprinkler heads. We water from the root up. Could it be my system is getting clogged? It is only 4 summers old.

[trader4]

Impossible to diagnose this type of problem by remote control. We don't even know what kind of grass or where you live. If the spots have been the same way for months, then it's just dead turf at this point that needs to be reseeded or replaced. Why it got that way is another issue. Could be disease, insects, drought, etc.

Did you take a sample of turf to the ext service? A piece where it transitions from healthy grass to problem grass is what you want. And you want it to be when the problem is active and the grass is being affected. At this point, it may not tell much, as you just have dead grass while the problem causing it could be long gone.

Regarding the drip irrigation, I've never seen this used on a lawn. If you think it's not getting watered in spots because of that, then just lift up a few sections of turf with a spade after watering and take a look. More lawns have died of over watering though, than lack of it. Grass will just go dormant without water for quite a long time before it actually dies. On the other hand, disease and fungus thrive in wet, hot, high nitrogen environments.