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dry bermuda grass vs sick bermuda grass?

8 years ago
how can i tell if my bermuda grass is sick? (fungus, etc) how can i tell if it's not receiving enough water and it's gone dormant?

first, yes it is possible for Bermuda grass to get sick. my lawn technician explained that there was a recent bought of fungus infecting bermuda grass in my neighborhood.

i know that overwatering bermuda grass will make it get sicker, so i dont want to do that. but i cant tell if it's still the fungus or it's hungry.

the first picture is probably fungus. note the hole in the green grass. the other two I'm not sure.

Comments (17)

  • 8 years ago

    Where In the world are you?

    Do you have drought conditions?

    Is it hot and dry where you are?

    No one can answer your questions without answers to these questions.

  • 8 years ago
    oh right im in central texas.

    actually isn't there a way to tell if the grass is sick?
  • 8 years ago

    Bermuda is so rarely sick that we tend to dismiss the concept until you can demonstrate lesions on the grass blades or rotten roots. Brown bermuda is common for several reasons. The most prevalent reason for brown bermuda is watering too frequently. Deep (1 inch) and infrequent (once a week) is the mantra for summertime watering.

    The one brown spot looks like a place where a dog has peed. Drop a handful of table sugar on it. The rest looks like overwatering.

    What is your watering schedule? How often and for how long?

    When were the last two times you fertilized and what did you use?

    Have you used any herbicides, fungicides, insecticides this season? If so, what?

    Where do you live? Central Texas is larger than many states. Have you been in the same drought the rest of us are in?

  • 8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    Bermuda that is too dry turns blue gray, not

  • 8 years ago

    Not

  • 8 years ago

    Brown

  • 8 years ago
    dchall_san_antonio you're not answering my question... I'm asking is there a way to physically tell if bermuda is dormant or dry.

    yeah so brown is sick?
  • 8 years ago

    Brown is

  • 8 years ago

    Sick. Sorry, not sure what is causing my last word to post after....

  • 8 years ago

    This is not a perfect test, but you can try grabbing a handful of the brown grass and pulling on it. If it is dormant, the blades will tend to stay attached. If it comes off, especially if it breaks off very easily, there may be a disease problem.

  • 8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    Brown may be sick, but again, sick bermuda is so rare that we almost never talk about it. Completely and thoroughly brown across the entire yard with no green at all is usually caused by being underwatered for months. You don't have that.

    Dormant happens in the winter and it can happen in the summer after months with no water at all. What I was saying is that it looks like it is getting watered too often.

    If we're going to count up unanswered questions, you didn't answer any of mine. If I didn't answer your question, it's because I can't give you a good answer without more information.

  • 8 years ago
    lindon q ... so in the backyard, the grass was hardy but in the front... it was almost brittle. it snapped off super easy. i also have the ugliest front lawn in the neighborhood even though the neighbors over water more than i do. gonna do the tuna can test today and confirm.
  • 8 years ago
    so it looks like I will be received some bad advice...before i was actually watering just right, and now I'm underwatering.

    below is the tuna can level after running the sprinklers. it's not even 20 percent full! at that rate I'd easily have to water it at least 4 hrs. it sounds like a lot but that's what the tuna test is supposed to tell you right? (and to be clear all six cans in that sprinkler zone all look the same)
  • 8 years ago

    so it looks like I will be received some bad advice...before i was actually watering just right, and now I'm underwatering.

    We don't know what information you were given nor do we know what has changed...because you refuse to answer the questions posed a few days ago. "Over watering" is a flimsy term. It means different things to different people. I water my lawn for 8 hours. Some would say that is over watering, but that's only 1 inch from my sprinkler.

    It still looks like you are watering lightly every day and that's wrong. There was a writer from El Paso earlier this summer with a similar appearing lawn. She changed to deep and infrequent watering and solved her problem.

    Here is a picture demonstrating the difference between light daily watering and deep and infrequent watering. This is Kentucky bluegrass from SE PA, but the appearance is similar with properly selected grasses in the south.

    Yours looks like the shallow and infrequent watering in the rest of the neighborhood. I can take you around my neighborhood in Bandera and show you the same thing on bermuda and St Augustine, but this picture really has it all in spectacular detail. Thanks to morpheuspa for posting the picture.

    My oscillator sprinkler on full sweep takes 8 hours to fill the can. Every sprinkler system is different, so you have to measure your own.


  • 8 years ago
    dhall yes exactly that's what the problem seems to be! in a previous post, i mentioned that i was watering my grass 4hrs once a week, and someone suggested that it was washing away the fertilizer (overwatering).

    but now it seems that i should have ignored that advice. gonna stick with the tuna can method for a month and report back.

    to confirm, i should water the grass once a week until all the tuna cans are filled up right?
  • 8 years ago

    All filled up is how I do it. If there is a significant difference from one can to another, then you should adjust the sprinklers so they spray more evenly. I've seen the grass dry out right around the sprinkler head because the sprinkler throws water far away, but the adjacent sprinkler heads do not overlap properly.

    When I ask people how long they water, what I really want to ask is how many inches they apply, but that concept is too esoteric to ask someone. Usually people will say that they water 3-4 times per week, and that's the wrong answer from the git-go. My friend in Phoenix waters about 3/4-inch every Thursday and Monday when the temps get above 115. I'm sure someone from "Central Texas" could beat that with temps only in the high 90s. I live across the street from our local water police, so I have to water only on Tuesdays, but if I miss a week and go to 2 weeks, my lawn does not die. In fact I have a shady part under a live oak tree that has not been watered in 3 weeks with temps in the high 90s every day. It does not look like a fresh salad, but it is clearly not that stressed. It's all green and not showing any brown.

  • 8 years ago
    yes that's originally what i thought dchall. i made sure to put cans near the sprinkler heads but they were watered just fine.

    will wait and see in a month. the only mystery is that i WAS previously watering the grass properly and it still turned yellow. but as i said before, the lawn tech had said "fungus is plaguing Bermuda grass right now". we'll see in a month...
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