In this episode of the Houston Grass podcast, Michael Romine discusses the recent weather conditions in the Houston area, emphasizing the heavy rains and their impact. He talks about how Hurricane Beryl and persistent rain have saturated the soil, stopping grass harvesting for more than a week. The podcast talks about common issues faced by homeowners due to excessive moisture, including gray leaf spot fungus, nutrient washout, and potential pest infestations like armyworms and sod webworms. Michael provides advice on treating these problems, recommending the use of Heritage G fungicide, and he emphasizes the importance of proper mowing techniques and fall fertilization to maintain healthy grass.
Call us at 281-431-7441 for answers to your questions and a quote for your next lawn project.
Summary of the July Houston Grass Podcast
Good morning, everyone. My name is Michael Romine, and this is Houston Grass and the Houston Grass podcast. We are here, I believe, on the second to last day of July, and it’s wet outside. Lots of rain, lots of mosquitoes, lots of humidity. This time last year, we couldn’t beg, borrow, or steal for the rain.
And now I think we have had rain for almost a week straight. We’ve been shut down cutting grass for about a week and a half now because the farm is just too wet to get the equipment in the fields to harvest it. We’ve had sunshine the last two or three days and anticipate getting back to it in a day or two, but it is wet. We had Hurricane Beryl, I guess, two weeks before that, and that was a lot of rain. So, we have certainly met our moisture requirements for a while around here, and those things take a toll on grass. Grass isn’t meant to stay wet all the time.
It can change things about it; it helps in some regards and can bring about issues in others. So, anyways, we’re still expecting to get back to it and get back to churning out our regular super high-quality grass from our farm in Bay City. I think that by the end of this week, we’ll be back to doing what we know how to do well.
Effects of Excessive Rain on Your Grass
I do want to talk about the effects of Hurricane Beryl and then the additional week of rain after that.
I guess the number one phone call that we’re getting right now is the usual summer phone call. I say the usual: chinch bugs can be an issue in the summertime when it’s hot and dry. Like last summer, that was the phone call we got.
Now it’s fungus. Yeah, everybody’s got gray leaf spot which is really rampant, especially in the shadier areas. Gray leaf spot is a fungus that the grass gets. We talk about it all the time, and we’ve got pictures of it on our site. Basically, if you look at a blade of grass, you’ll see the way it starts is with little dots of brown that are probably no bigger than the end of a pen on it. Left untreated, that moves into the whole blade of grass turning brown and just decaying away. It can cause a little yellowing effect.
I had a friend of mine call yesterday and ask why his yard was consistently yellow across most of it. A lot of that is because all this rain washes all of the nutrients out of the soil. All your fertilizer that was there has probably washed through the soil.
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and too much rain can bring that about. Another thing, if it’s kind of splotchy yellow, that can be summer patch. It’s basically the same kind of fungus as brown patch, but it appears this time of year.
The patterns aren’t those perfect circular patterns that you usually get with brown patch, but the effects kind of look the same. All of these can be treated with Heritage G, and they absolutely should be. Heritage G is the fungicide that we sell or you can get on Amazon and a lot of other places.
You’re not going to find it in the big box stores, though. It is a granular fungicide that you put out just like fertilizer in the fertilizer spreader. Whereas with fertilizer, you may put it out on like a seven or an eight or something like that (and of course read the bags), you’ll put this out on like a one or a two; it’s a real fine granule.
It goes out real fast and doesn’t take a whole lot, but it’s good for a couple of treatments, two or three weeks apart. That puts a stop to a lot of that fungus activity. So as long as the rain stops here… All the rain is good for the grass, but like I said, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Mother Nature’s water is always better for the grass than anything we can irrigate. And that goes for us as homeowners as well. The rainwater does better for our plants, trees, grass, and everything.
Speaking of other effects of Hurricane Beryl, we still have tons of debris piles piled up everywhere in our neighborhood. They have certainly been there long enough to kill the grass that’s underneath them. Once those debris piles are cleared, chances are if you just leave it, Bermuda grass is probably what’s going to beat St. Augustine to the punch. So you will have to look at replacing that. Hopefully they’re just smaller areas and everything’s condensed and just out by the curbs and stuff like that. That will need to be stripped and replaced. It’d be a good idea to do it before the weeds show up because that can happen as well. Then you’ve got to fight the weeds before replacing the grass.Those are kind of the first things that I see.
Excess Rain Can Bring Pests Too
There can be some pest infestations with this much rain. Armyworms are a real concern, especially in Bermuda grass. They could show up as well. Usually, the telltale sign of armyworms is birds showing up in your yard. They are little worms, but they’re not so little you can’t see them. They’ll eat the grass down to stubs as well, so you’ve got to watch out for those as well as sod webworms.
Sod webworms—we haven’t heard any reports of sod webworms; people haven’t called us asking what to do and how to treat them—but they are certainly a concern. The telltale sign that they have shown up: The easiest thing to do is when you walk out in your yard in the mornings, you walk in the taller grass and brown moths will fly up out of the grass in usually fair numbers.
Those moths flutter around and drop their eggs; then little worms come out of those eggs and eat your grass. If you don’t have the moths, you walk out in the morning and see—especially with heavy dew—you can see the dew on their webs that they form over their little hangouts during the day because they disappear during the day.
What they’ll do is they’ll come out and eat a hole—it might only be the size of a softball or so—and it looks like somebody just took a weed eater and instead of getting a nice cut with a lawnmower, it looks like somebody took a weed eater and ripped all the tops of grass down to just stubble with real jagged cuts.
Usually not very big spots until you get a bigger infestation of them; then they’ll level your whole yard. Sod webworms can be an issue to be on the lookout for; armyworms as well. But gray leaf spot is almost a given when it gets this wet and humid; you’ll definitely want to treat for that if you start to see signs of it at all. It is expensive stuff, but if you put it out pretty quickly, it stops the issue and can reverse itself quickly because we do have so much growing time.
These are great growing conditions for grass once it dries out a little bit. We do have some good warm, hot, humid days; the grass will grow well when you stop that fungus activity. So keep that in mind as well.
Fall and Cooler Temperatures Are Coming!
Fall season is around the corner—believe it or not. I read an article yesterday that said the next two or three weeks of August are supposed to be the hottest weeks of the year here along the greater Houston area.
Hopefully we can get past those and start looking forward to fall here. It will be time to fertilize again with the Fall Special—the Nitro-Phos Fall Special in a brown bag will be the fertilizer of choice for that time of year.
You’re not looking for green-up; what you’re trying to do is feed the grass and get it ready to go into dormancy and come out good and strong in springtime. So you’re giving it supplemental nutrition it needs to do that. September is probably a little early for that.
I would say late September and anytime in October is probably the best time to put that out and follow the directions on the bag. It’s just like Super Turf that you’ll put out in summer and either Imperial or Imperial with weed killers that you’ll put out in springtime.
They all come in 40-pound bags. It is one of the really important feedings even though you’re not looking for green-up; you’re wanting to give that nutrition back especially after all has been washed out with this rain here; it would be a good idea to do that fall feeding for sure.
Mow Higher than Usual
Other than that, I would say keep up with mowings and whatnot. I know it’s been wet; I’ve talked to many people who haven’t been able to mow for a couple of weeks because of all the rain—so their grass is super tall.
It’s probably worth mowing twice: raising that deck height up really high—maybe all the way—and knocking off just the top first; then maybe coming back a couple days later lowering it down a little bit rather than taking one hack at it all at once regardless you’re going need get all dead material out there; you don’t want leave all thatch laying there because it’ll pile up so bad right now it’ll kill underlying grass if left unchecked.
When it’s just the weekly mowings, and you’re cutting a little bit at a time and adding that, and you’re using the mulching blade you’re returning some nitrogen to the soil. That’s a good thing. once you can tip toe out across it, it’d be a good idea, to cut it once and even it up. Get what you can out of there and then come back a couple of days later.
And of course, normally we tell people to water right after you mow, especially in the summertime. That is not necessary right now. You’re trying to get that soil to dry out. There’s not many plants out there that like to stay wet all the time, and grass is certainly one of those.
And, that’s why drainage is so important because, you want to get those in our fields and in your yards as well, you want to get that. You want to get that water out of there and off that grass as soon as possible. Standing water is really detrimental to grass. So not only for the mosquitoes sake, you don’t want standing water, but it’s just not good for most plants, including grass too. So, it is important to get its feet dry.
So, that is, kind of all I can think of here today. We are hoping to get back to selling grass here as soon as we dry out. We are at Mother Nature’s mercy though. Our business revolves around Mother Nature. When it’s raining, we don’t have a lot going on.
There are lots of people looking for grass. People that are fixing where the trees fell and stuff like that are showing up. A lot of people are calling us and asking us questions about the funguses and stuff. So if you need some Heritage G, give us a call. If you need a little advice, give us a call about that. Our number is 281-431-7441.
But, we’re hoping to get back to turning out, our high quality grass here in the next couple of days. We’d love to hear from you if you’ve got questions or have sod needs. Thank you for listening.
