Custom Turf, Inc.

03/25/2026

What you may be currently seeing in your lawn are random yellow spots approximately the size of your fist or slightly bigger, some even connected or irregular in shape. This is perennial ryegrass bunches or clumps that have been adversely affected by the extreme swings in air temperature.

Earlier this March we exited the deep freeze and started seeing temperatures in the 70’s and more recently even low 80’s. Some grass types began coming out of dormancy, showing a nice green color and some even moderate top growth. We dipped back into the 20’s one or two days each week and even saw approximately 3” of snow cover.

Perennial ryegrasses, like tall fescue and fine fescues are “clump or bunch” growers by nature and are susceptible to freeze tip burn when they exit dormancy prematurely (encouraged by the early warm temperatures). Bluegrasses however hold a longer dormancy and generally do not begin their exit until sometime in April. The yellow circles are ryegrass clumps that have been frost burned but the damage is only temporary. As top growth continues and mowing begins, the yellow tips will be mowed off, and the entire grass plant will display its spring green color.

As a side note, we have also witnessed lots of yellow footprints both human and animal especially from deer. The foot traffic on a frozen lawn breaks the tender foliage of the grass plant and causes a similar look of freeze burn. Again, this is only a temporary situation alleviated by top growth and mowing.

02/26/2026

Heather is Brandon's (Our Lawn Operations Manager) wife and is an incredible baker. She showed up a bunch of times over the winter with cookies, cupcakes, cakes, etc.. spoiling our office staff! Today she outdid herself bringing us this cake to help kick the season off. A Custom Turf Lawn - before and after. Great example of our work and absolutely delicious!

09/24/2025

Some pics of some Custom Turf Employees touring the field at PNC Park today. Very educational. Learned about the grass types, maintenance, fertilization, watering, etc. Best kept field in baseball!

08/13/2025

Now that we have dried out, lawns without irrigation are showing stress. It is essential to mow at 4" and NOT mow the lawn if it is dormant.

From Ohio State:

Stop Mowing
When a lawn is under drought stress, mowing provides another unnecessary stress to turfgrass. The physical process of cutting the turfgrass blades is considered a stress, in addition to the extra foot and/or tire traffic. Avoid mowing dormant and drought stressed lawns.

Mowing Heights
Mowing height is the most important parameter of mowing. Similar to other plants, turfgrasses rely on photosynthesis to manufacture sugars, fueling their development into a high-quality lawn. When mowed at low heights, turfgrasses possess limited leaf area, restricting their photosynthetic rate and ultimately compromising their vigor.

In general, lawns mowed too short will develop shallow root systems with less total mass compared to those mowed at a higher cut. The consequences become most apparent during summer stress periods, when limited soil moisture can lead to signs of stress and increased risk of turfgrass loss in closely mowed lawns. By maintaining higher mowing heights during summer, cooler soil temperatures and moisture preservation are promoted through increased shade from the turf canopy. Additionally, consider raising mowing heights further for turfgrass maintained under shade, where light limitation necessitates enhanced leaf area for photosynthesis.

07/28/2025

Customers with sprinkler systems. We are now at the end of July, and at this point in the summer, you have not needed to run your system. Excessive rain, humidity has created over-saturated, disease-ridden lawns. Additional watering has only made lawns worse! Turn your system off until we have a prolonged dry period (if we ever do this season).

07/15/2025

NEW GRASS

As posted weeks ago, disease is still an ongoing issue - weather pattern remains the same - humidity, excessive rain, etc. I have looked at a lot of lawns - mainly potential customers and some existing customers who seeded in the spring or last fall. Newer grass with in-mature root systems are taking a beating with disease. Looked at two potential customer's lawns this morning and unfortunately told them they will need to re-seed in the fall. We can hit with a fungicide and starter fertilizer which will bring some recovery but the damage is done. Not your fault, not your company's fault (yes I defend our competitors),... blame mother nature. *Pic is from a lawn in Rostraver - seeded in April '25.

07/07/2025

Happy Monday! A little serenity in the warehouse before the technicians start arriving.

07/04/2025

06/30/2025

May and June's weather has been very conducive for turf disease activity. High humidity, excessive rain and over-cast skies are ideal conditions for disease. Red Thread was present it most lawns up until a week or so ago. With the higher temps, we are now seeing Dollar Spot. Usually you will only see disease activity in full sun areas ( you can see in the picture - the shaded areas are green). Generally, these diseases only attack the tips of the blades and grow out when weather patterns change. Fertilizer applications help speed up the process. With extreme activity - like in the pic, we have fungicide applications that can bring the activity to a halt.

05/11/2025

We’re proud to welcome Custom Turf, Inc. as a Silver Sponsor for the 2025 Pittsburgh Melanoma Foundation!

Custom Turf is helping us grow hope and awareness by supporting our mission to fight melanoma through education, prevention, and research. Their generosity plays a vital role in making our events and outreach possible.

Thank you, Custom Turf, for standing with us in the fight against skin cancer!

Let’s give them a warm welcome and support the businesses that support our community!

04/30/2025

No power, no internet, no phones until 2pm. This amazing office staff went above and beyond improvising to keep everything rolling as smoothly as possible under the circumstances. A generator with lots of extension cords, laptops using mobile device hot spots to access the database, using cell phones to check messages and call customers back. We now have power and internet.. still no landline.

04/30/2025

Pittsburgh Customers... Like others, our office currently has no power, phones, or internet. For the time being, we are doing what we can. Our lawn and sprinkler technicians are out performing their routes.