@SandmanAg, did you take a picture of my lawn? Ours look identical. And I'm pissed every time I walk outside.

I wish it were yours, but I guess its just nice to have someone to commiserate with in having a crap-ass lawn.

Just purchased some of that DiseaseEx to throw down -- I'm sure it will be looking better in no time. I guess it really doesn't matter since the webworms will surely be back to feast later this year.

ChoppinDs40 said:

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https://neilsperry.com/2008/08/battling-takeall-root-rot/
Peat moss treatment

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I did that last year after Texags suggested my problems were TARR. HD rents a rolling peat moss spreaders that makes it a breeze. So far my grass is looking great this year.

bam02 said:

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ChoppinDs40 said:

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https://neilsperry.com/2008/08/battling-takeall-root-rot/
Peat moss treatment

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I did that last year after Texags suggested my problems were TARR. HD rents a rolling peat moss spreaders that makes it a breeze. So far my grass is looking great this year.

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How much did the peat moss treatment run you including the spreader rental? How big is the lawn?

My best guess is my lawn area is about 6000 sf. I put down 7 bags of peat moss so whatever those cost plus maybe $30 for the rental. Rental may have been less than that. Definitely no more.

The spreader worked great but I had to bungee the latch closed. The mechanism on it was worthless. It looks like a sod roller but it's all just a big rolling mesh basket.

I have places like this in my yard and its holdover from cinch bugs last year. This time next month, it will be grown in from StA doing what it does this time of year. Might have some root rot, but if you raked it out of there real good, the existing StA will run and cover.

My parents' yard, however, is a total loss. We worked that thing for a decade or more and the watering restrictions last summer did the nearly 1/2 acre in for good. Its nothing but weeds now, sadly.

Working on raking up all the dead runners

Got some diseases ex

Instructions aren't great. Apply this after a light rain and don't allow water for 2 days?

Neil Sperry has been preaching for the last two weeks that TARR is a big problem for St. Augustine all over Texas. He advises to use Scott's Disease X to help with the problem. He has also mentioned that he is getting worried about a new virus hitting St. Augustine in Florida now called Lethal viral Necrosis. There is no cure for this and it mainly hitting the Floratam variety but there have been some reports that it is hitting other varieties also. Neal advised to keep an eye on this as it may start showing up in Texas St. Augustine. He related the University of Florida is now leading the research on the problem.

It's frustrating for sure...and I feel like I'm going to spend all this money and effort getting my yard back to "okay", only to be kneecapped by heavy handed watering restrictions that leave my lawn completely stressed and open to disease again....

xeroscape, zoysia, or bermuda... St. Augustine shouldn't be in too many lawns unless it gets ample water.

Yeah when I see large spots of St Aug die in my yard I think great! Now I can replace that with bermudagrass

Would the pivot to bermuda grass require me killing off and tilling up everything, or is it possible to just scalp the St. Augustine (when the timing is right), over seed and then start favoring the bermuda in things like mowing height/frequency, watering, etc? I'm in no rush and would probably prefer taking a few seasons to make the transition vs a single big effort.

I't's not a huge section of yard - about 3500 square feet and the side yard is already bermuda...mostly gets sun and is the part of our yard that gets the most foot/pet traffic, so from the reading I've done, Bermuda may be the better choice anyhow....

Bermuda should outperform St Augustine and eventually overtake it, especially if you keep the height of cut lower. If you don't mind having a mix of grasses for a few years, or longer, then might as well start making the switch over.

I think the cold winter weather and tons of rain did a number on ours in Bryan, but it's filling back in.

I'd aggressively rake up and remove as much of that as you can, then spray bug control. I'd then top dress with enchriched topsoil. Then start watering...a lot of that can recover by mid summer. Might not hurt to dig some out and put in a few squares of sod to accelerate the process.

Patience is key with st augustine this year. So much damage from the drought and freeze and it's hanging around longer than normal because we've had such cool temps. People think they should have the yard they've always had because they've always had a lush yard by now but forget the year we had last year and don't realize the optimal growing weather ain't here yet. We'll get a few days of good growing weather and then another front hits.

Indeed this morning's radio topic of Neil Sperry "Take All Root Rot"
used to be Peat Moss remedy but would come back
today: fungicide Azoxystrobin out of the Scott's line of products
http://rb.gy/rw0h4

tgivaughn said:

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Indeed this morning's radio topic of Neil Sperry "Take All Root Rot"
used to be Peat Moss remedy but would come back
today: fungicide Azoxystrobin out of the Scott's line of products
http://rb.gy/rw0h4

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just be careful with Azoxy....you can overdo it and fungus can build a tolerance....I found out the hard way

Listen to both Skip on Garden line and Neil Sperry on KLIF and his mid morning program. Leading topic by far was TARR. Skip said that use of pre -emergent is damages the development of roots. As stated previous on this topic pre-emergent is not a good thing to use as has been the past practice. Neil again related that the viral disease hitting St. Augustine in Florida has his worried and he is watching the Univ. of Florida closely for any developments. He concluded by stating he suspects it may start in Texas if measures are not taken. This is not good all over the State of Texas TARR is running amok,

What sort of measures can be taken to prevent it from becoming a problem here?

a this point, i've kinda given up. i put down pre emergent, but that's about it. if its green, its "grass."

We put out that DiseaseEX stuff over the weekend & will do it again in a month. We'll see. Our St Augustine yard looks terrible like everybody's on here does. Might make a shift to bermuda next year if this doesn't work.

I've not had good luck with disease x. Granted I've got kids, and neighbor kids and labs and neighbor dogs all over my yard all the time. Then the hill country drought. We aerated Friday and got about an inch of rain and today it already looks dried out yet still diseased as hell after fungicide on Thursday. I just want a pool and fake grass

Beckdiesel03 said:

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I've not had good luck with disease x. Granted I've got kids, and neighbor kids and labs and neighbor dogs all over my yard all the time. Then the hill country drought. We aerated Friday and got about an inch of rain and today it already looks dried out yet still diseased as hell after fungicide on Thursday. I just want a pool and fake grass

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So you had a disease that eats the roots then you punched holes all through the stolons/leaves/remaining roots and you're expecting the grass to be looking normal after less than a week?

I applied Azoxystrobin ~2 weeks ago with Ironite, Propiconazole, and peat moss on top of it. My second application was Sunday and the grass is just now back to normal minus bare patches. Give it time and make sure to do a second treatment. Also, make sure you're using the curative rate.

Did you use the liquid Ironite?

atmtws said:

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Did you use the liquid Ironite?

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Granular. Why?

I rotate between Eagle 20ew and standard Propiconazole. Albeit I have a cool season turf. I have had fantastic results with the Eagle fungicide. In my mind, if you are watering correctly and do not see an active insect infestation, more than likely it's a fungal issue. It's also important to rotate the fungicides as they can become tolerant pretty quick if you don't.

My 2 cents would be to try the Eagle and see if you start recovering. You can buy it from Amazon or most specialty turf stores. You won't see something as potent as this at any big box store. If you do choose to use the Eagle product, be sure to read the safety data sheet and wear the correct PPE as it's some nasty stuff.

https://www.corteva.us/products-and-solutions/turf-and-ornamental/eagle-20ew.html

I just want to mention something that I think may help. For the 4 years we have been in our current house, I had no issues with my St. Augustine lawn. Well, last summer my son used our lawnmower to mow a neighbor's lawn that had take-all-root-rot. The stuff does travel on equipment, because a couple of months after this we ended up with it in our lawn - all over. I started treating with Disease-Ex and rinsing my mower deck down after each mowing. I got some control on it in terms of spreading but am still fighting the dead patches from last summer.

I have St. Augustine. This years it's been very slow to re-emerge. Little rain in April so far not much in May.

Good rain last night. We get a nice wet week followed by higher temps and stronger sun and I bet the St. A. kicks into a higher gear.

When I get weak spots, I spread potting soil in the areas and increase watering and they fill in soon.

With all the rain in the State now, TARR is going to run wild in St. Augustine. Get ready to treat until summer.

I noticed the yellowing last year and thought it was iron deficiency. Someone here suggested TARR so I put down s****num peat moss. This year my grass looks better than ever but I did start to notice that fluorescent yellow recently so I just put down some Disease X last night before getting 4" of rain.

I wonder if that much rain just washed it all away or watered it in? Either way I plan to treat with Disease X again in a couple weeks and do the peat moss thing again. It was easy worth the spreader I rented from HD last year.

So, like everyone else, we've been dealing with caterpillars eating our flowers (marigolds, zinnias, and periwinkles). Then I started noticing holes in the leaves, and went out to inspect last night and found tons of snails on everything. I applied some neem oil today to help fend off the bugs (and maybe the snails), then grabbed a spray bottle of alcohol the other half had bought for aphids. I sprayed it on the marigolds (the most snail infested plant) and watched the snails fall right off. So what do I do? Spray all of the flowers with the alcohol....which I thought was diluted for plant use.....nope....its 70%. Did I just nuke all my flowers?