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Equqi Opportunity nitilu'-or 1 A unit of the Technical College System of Georgia
The Taylor County News, May 18, 2023, Page 8.
Extension
Exactitude
By Jeff Cook
Taylor County
Extension Agent
What Is Going On?
Taylor County Primary School First Graders
Present The Musical, “E-I-E-I Oops!”
We have finally made it to some
wanner weather, but we arc not done
seeing the effects of an unusual win
ter, 1 have been receiving a lot of phone
calls about dead or unhealthy grass, so
1 thought I would talk a little bit about
what I am seeing and what we need to
do.
There seems to be a large amount of
centipede grass that is having trouble
greening up this year Even my yard
has not completely greened up. After
visiting several sites and talking to our
turfgrass specialists m Griffin, 1 think
I have it figured out. First of all, we
had 3 days in December that were well
below freezing, and at least one day
that was the coldest it’s been in many
years. February felt like May, and our
grasses began to green up. Then, we
experienced two hard freezes in March,
and some of the heaviest frost I have
ever seen. All of this to say, we are still
seeing the remnants of severe cold in
jury on grasses and other plants in the
landscapc.
Annually, 1 write at least one article
about centipede grass and how to prop
erly care for it. I also annually talk
about how improper care will residt in
a layer of thatch. It is this layer of
thatch and some frigid temperatures
that has caused many of us to have
dead spots in our lawns. When there
is a layer of thatch in our grass, the
roots will begin to grow in this layer
rather than in the soil.
The thatch layer is not a good place
for roots to grow, because it tends to dry
out more rapidly than the soil, and it is
poor at insulating roots against hot or
cold temperatures. This winter was not
the coldest, but we had several days
below freezing w ith several of those in
the teens and even single digits. Dur
ing these cold events, the air tempera
ture was cold enough that it froze and
killed a lot of the root system that was
in the layer of thatch just above the soil
level .
One other factor aiTecting our lawns
is the amount of rain we got last grow
ing season. From samples that we have
sent off, w r e are seeing a little bit of a
fungal disease that probably got into
our grasses late last season and has
added to the problems we are seeing
with green up.
So, what should we do to help our
lawns out? In severe cases, it may be
necessary to overseed or re-sod a lawn,
but in my opinion, this would be a dras
tic step. For most lawns, we just need
to give them time to recover. Even in
the worse looking lawns, there are signs
of green grass coming back. It might
be beneficial to apply a fungicide just
in case large patch or brown patch are
affecting your lawn. For specific rec
ommendations, you can give us a call.
We do not need to fertilize damaged
gl ass. In many cases, over fertilization
is the reason for the cold injury. We do
need to keep the law n watered if it gets
dry, and we need to keep the weeds
mowed so that they don’t shade the re
maining grass. I would also strongly
discourage the use of herbicides on
stressed lawns. Even recommended
weed killers can cause injury, and we
need to avoid any man-made stresses.
If you have any questions about this
or anything else going on in your land
scape, please give me a call. We will be
happy to help you figure out what is
going on, (478) 825-6466, (478) 862-
5496, or mackiv@bga.edu.
Taylor County Primary School first grade students presented the musical, “E-I-EJ Oops!”. Music teacher, Mrs. Lori Peed, thanks all of the
students for an awesome performance!
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