QuestionQUESTION: I live in san antonio,tx and along my driveway, my grass is dying. it has spread about three feet towards the yard, all you see is like viens and no grass. what can i do.
ANSWER: If it is St. Augustine and you have a sprinkler system and the dead grass is advancing in a straight line (more or less), it is likely to be chinch bugs. If you do not have a sprinkler system then it could be that the lawn needs water. Here is my reasoning.
If you have a sprinkler system and it is failing, then there will be curving boundaries to the dead grass.
If there is no system, the grass will dry out fairly evenly from the highest areas (high spots) or hottest areas (sidewalks, driveways and blacktop). You will also observe advanced signs like wilting and leaf rolling.
If the turf is St. Augustine, chinch bugs are always a possibility and they usually start from the driest areas.
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QUESTION: What is leaf rolling. and yes it is St. Aug. if it is cinch bugs, what do i need to do. I thought it might need fertilizer so i was going to add organic 7-2-2. Let me know what to do?
Answer The leaves of unstressed St. Augustine turf are open and flat. When the plant is short of water the two halves of the blade roll up toward the middle in such a way as to form a tube. The water that is given off by the leaf pores (transpiration) remain trapped in this tube for the plant's use. This rolling is the usually the first visible sign of moisture stress in many plants.
Apply an insecticide containing "Fiprinol" or "Bifenthrin" only if you are quite sure that chinch bugs are present and that there are more than 10 per sq.ft. Although the damage is there the bugs may have moved on.
"Plants do not eat solid food" was the repeated refrain of a past mentor. If you are confident that irrigation or rain or hand watering is adequately available, you can apply the fertilizer. If water is not avaialble to the lawn, it will be stressed further by the application of a synthetic fertilizer.
