Here is a shot of my grass with “dead” areas:
Here is a close-up of a dead zone:
Here is a close-up of some of the green stuff in my yard. Bermuda, or T.B.D.:
Here is a close-up of a dead zone:
Here is a close-up of some of the green stuff in my yard. Bermuda, or T.B.D.:
@plainsane I’m curious as to your opinion on the grass type and why @AzJazz might be having this problem. From the moisture graphs the schedule looks similar to mine, and @Modawg2k’s, who’s turf looks great. I would think maybe the nozzles weren’t nearly putting out what was defined, but in the spec sheets the heads aren’t drastically off from the default fixed spray heading.
http://store.rainbird.com/sprinklers/10van-10-ft-van-series-variable-arc-spray-nozzle.html3
The only think I can think of is a catch cup test, and maybe another dethatch, although it was detached last year. Maybe there is a pressure issue causing the pr to be lower than expected?
Looks like a catch cup test is a good suggestion, @azdavidr. Doesn’t look like there is much to dethatch.
@AzJazz, use a soil probe, or a screwdriver with a long thin blade and push it into the soil. A soil probe can be easily pushed into moist soil. It will become difficult to push into dry soil. That will give you an idea of how deeply water is penetrating your soil. Check several places around the yard.
From the photo, it appears to be canary grass in your bermuda. You can just mow it and when your lawn is health again, the bermuda should choke it out.
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I’ll stop by Sprinkler World today to get some catch cups. My grass is about 1100 sqft. with separate 3 zones.
How many cups should I buy for the test?
Also, I forgot - I actually did a manual dethatch of the yard a few months back when the grass was looking sad.
Pulling a thatch rake through the yard in 95+ degF weather totally sux.
Most people around here get these. Hopefully Sprinkler world has them.
I have a smaller yard so I only needed one set. However, I think you can still by one set but would maybe move the cups and rerun. @Modawg2k has experience with that.
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@AzJazz You are me, just with a different screen name. Same area of Phx, I have 1300 sq ft on 3 zones… you’ll get thru this, trust me 
First, if you hand raked the thatch, you probably didn’t get it nearly as well as a machine can get it. Plus 1100 sq ft is a lot for manual dethatching. @azdavidr and I already discussed how backbreaking just doing his smaller lawn is. I guarantee you that your issue is a watering issue, just like mine… check out my post if you haven’t yet…
Do this like I did if you haven’t already
Soil: Sandy Loam (AW is 0.12)
Root depth: go to 6" since you do not have strong roots in those areas.
Allowed depletion: keep at default 50
Effeciency: if defaults to 90, but if you have clogged/broken heads, I guarantee you that your effeciency is much lower… probably sub 50. A catch cup test will do this for you. You can check out the store, but I bought the orbits on amazon FYI, love that one because it does all the calculations on line Watering strategies to fix this bad area - #26 by Modawg2k
Crop Coeffeicient: Default is 0.65… but i was running 0.73 all summer because of an older default setting in Rachio
Sun: just mark it for lots of sun.
Visually inspect your heads, it’s easy to see if you there is a gap in yoour spray arc… get cheap orbi replacement heads at Lowes
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You can get buy with just one set, you’ll just have to do multiple runs and keep track of the data. The typical pack comes with 12 I think. On my 900 sqft patch I did at least 4 runs I think.
Yeah just 1 set, i actually did just 1 10 minute run on each of the 3 zones, maybe i didn’t technically have them all correctly placed bout, but it made sense to me what i was measuring and they were appropriately spaced… i just made sure to combine numbers on cups that had overlapping zones
This looks like insect damage not water related, in my opinion. If this was a watering problem it would not be so spotty with small patches of death.
It could be fungal related but that single stem of Bermuda shows no fungal stress at all.
Plus the grass closest to the stone border looks healthy and it would be the first to show eat stress at that stone will radiate heat long after the ambient temp drops.
If it were my yard I would dig down about 1.5 foot and break up the soil to see if you can find larva or scales.
Can you post close ups of green grass on a border of death.
Another thing, the grass looks anemic so either insects are eating your roots back or you have a serious ph issue with your soil.
Have you ever had a soil analysis?
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Also, if your camera has a flower icon, switch to that so you can take a macro shot
I’ll take some of the suggested macro pictures tomorrow and post them.
No, I haven’t had a soil analysis done before.
As a side note: I’m not sure if this is an apples <=> apples comparison, but my winter rye grass was mostly OK. There were some bare patches, but probably due to a few areas where the seed didn’t land or didn’t take (maybe due to the sprinklers).
If the rye grass would be similarly damaged due to soil pests or pH levels, it may be less likely.
AzJazz
I’m not convinced it’s a ph problem, but it is a possibility.
I’m still more confident in this being an insect issue, then fungal, then soil composition.
What fertilizer composition are you using and how often?
@plainsane. What kind of insects can be problematic for lawns? A while back when I was working on my lawn I noticed done termite like insects running around at various points in my lawn. Lately, as I walk through there seem to be little white ones that bounce around when I walk through. I didn’t figure there was a potential for them to be damaging.
Army worms
Nematodes
Grubs
The list goes on, it’s very regional specific
You have to research your region and grass type.
Like army worms don’t hit Bermuda, but f cold season grasses to in the a.
I can’t make any claim to a specific insect/parasite based n those pictures. I just know that it is not a watering problem unless that soil is extremely hydrophobic.
Also @AzJazz don’t check soil moisture in a dead spot, there will be none as the tiller canopy is not there to protect from solar radiation. You need to check moisture in a green spot.
I say do the check for bugs… I did and when I dug down, I saw nothing… not even roots 
So once I ruled that out, I just waited as I let a proper watering schedule do it’s thing after some nozzle replacements and catch cup test
Hi, all - I dug around 1 ft. down in a “dead” area. and I didn’t find any obvious critters in the soil when I broke it up in my fingers. The ground was a bit drier than I expected, since I received at least 0.75" of rain at my house yesterday. The soil fell apart pretty easily and was crumbly. There was a root mesh near the surface as I started digging.
While I didn’t see anything below surface, I did see areas that were totally covered by bunny pellets. Not sure if they are recent or old. We did have a lot of fluffy-tailed visitors during rye grass season. Not as much now, but there is usually one visitor every day or so.
I covered up the (hopefully) last hole in my block wall after chasing a varmint out of the yard.
Here are some shots of the grass near the edge of a dead zone:
And, one dead zone:
AzJazz
Yes, every one of those pictures has rabbit pellets in them! It’s funny that this came up. Just today, I started wondering if I might have a similar issue. I think I might post a separate thread on it, but I did come across this.
I also read that they don’t like all grasses, but Bermuda is one that they do eat. Look out for a separate thread. That will make it easier to reference in the future.
I’m not saying this is your problem, but with that much feces around I wonder if it’s a possibility?
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I didn’t post any pictures of the bunny nugget carpet. I’ll get that out tomorrow. I thought it would be a fertilizer, so I wasn’t too concerned. I’m assuming that the acidity comes from the urine?
I found this posting, which says that healthy rabbits shouldn’t have crop-dangerous droppings:
Not exactly a solid scientific “proof”, but an interesting data point.
Will there be any problems if I try mixing in some lime into the affected areas? If I should, how do I add it? I haven’t messed with lime before.
AzJazz
@AzJazz Unfortunately I don’t have a clue about the lime. It’s probably worth some research there. As you’re well aware with our extreme heat what applies to other areas of the country might be a bit different here.
What you posted is interesting. I suppose one issue is we don’t know much about the diet of these desert rabbits, other than that I guess we know they eat Bermuda. I’m not sure if you saw it yet, but I started that other thread with more information. It will be easier to reference as a separate thread.
Share with us whatever else you find. I’ll keep looking too. Of course you still have the catch cup test to do, and the insect or fungus potential is still out there.
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@AzJazz I found this. It looks like you should pH test first, which you can buy yourself locally, or take a sample to get tested. The link talks about application, which doesn’t seem to be too big of a deal.