wrote in message
...
My lawn is half green and half brown. I can't figure it out.
The blades that are green look great. But there is a 50/50 mixture of
dead brown grass that is still rooted to the ground.

Last year I mistakenly thought this was thatch, so I bought a
dethatcher. But then when I learned how to check thatch by looking at
a cross section of the soil and grass, I found I had no thatch
problem.

Here's what it looked like last year:
http://www.mbsoundworks.com/tempstuff/grass1.jpg
http://www.mbsoundworks.com/tempstuff/grass2.jpg

The pictures were taken before the drought, so it wasn't a water
problem. You can see what it looks like compared to my neighbor's
yard!

Can anyone help me?

I'm in northwestern Illinois.
As the lawns are waking up, I can already see that it's going to look
the same as it did last year.

I plug-aerated in the Fall, and put down winterizer.
I've put down my Scotts pre-emergent/fertilizer already.

I'm willing to do the work, but I'm at a loss as to what the problem
is!


I would suggest that before you get too involved check to make sure that
you've got the right about of a good quality, slow-release fertilizer going
down. Do you know how to tell what the percentage of N is in the fert you
are applying? The first number of the 3 on the bag is the N%. So if you've
got a 50lb bag of 25-10-10 you know you're dealing w/ 12.5lbs of Nitrogen.
Then you want to apply the fert in 3 or 4 applications per season and you
want to lay down about 4lbs of N/ 1,000 square ft. for the entire season.
This means you are going to have to measure your yard or at least get a good
approximation.

I would work toward an application something like this.
early spring fert 1 1/4 lbs N/ 1,000 sq. ft.
later spring fert 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lbs N/ 1000 sq ft
summer fert about 1/2 lb N/ 1000 sq ft
fall fert 1 tpp 1 1/2 lbs N/ 1000 sq ft.
...... remember you are dealing w/ the nitrogen component only here....not
the weight of the whole bag. Your lawn is quite large so I would sugget that
you try to calibrate your spreader on a smaller section of grass that is
measured off accurately.

The only other thing I can suggest is that for the summer application you
apply a fert that has an insecticide built into it. At a glance I didn't see
any insect damage in the photo's, but I recomment a preventative 'cause it
would be a shame to get that lawn going and then have the bugs chew it up in
August.

Good luck w/ it,

Peter H