Rain came back after a dry September, and your turf smells worse for it

At the Myrtle Beach airport gauge, the October 4 storm was the first soaking since early August. Totals varied across the Strand, and some inland yards caught less. September brought 0.80 inch at the airport. Countywide, drought.gov puts September about 3.7 inches below normal, tied for Horry County's 8th driest in 132 years, and ranks January through September as the 2nd driest on record.

The rain helped, but it did not end the drought. As of mid-October, all of Horry County was still in D2, severe drought, on the U.S. Drought Monitor. Rain wakes the bacteria living on urine residue in the infill, and they make ammonia while it stays wet; our page on turf that smells after rain explains how. What is different this year is how much residue was sitting there waiting.

Summer storms normally give a turf yard a partial rinse again and again, carrying some of the urine salts, dust and pollen down through the backing before they pile up. This year they did that through July and into early August, then mostly stopped. The last soaking at the airport gauge came on August 5. From then until October 4 it caught 2.70 inches in all, and no single day brought half an inch, so about eight weeks of urine salts, dust and pollen stayed in the infill.

Then the October storms wet all of it at once, and the bacteria woke up to eight weeks of food on the same morning. That is why some yards smell worse this month than they did in late summer, and why a pet zone that seemed fine in September can be noticeable from the patio now.

The county is still in severe drought, so do the dry work first and put water only where the smell is.

1. Pick up, blow and brush. Clear solids, blow off the leaves, needles and dust the storms brought down, and brush the pile against the grain with a synthetic-bristle broom. None of this uses water.
2. Mark where the smell stops. Lay a garden hose along the edge of the pet zone and treat only inside that line.
3. Wet the zone briefly. A hose on a shower setting, high side to low side, just until the infill is damp, so the enzyme spreads. Our guide to rinsing turf the right way covers the technique; you want a short pre-wet, not a full flush.
4. Enzyme in the evening. Apply an enzyme cleaner labeled for pet turf until the infill is wet, not just the blades, after the sun is off the yard. Leave it at least twenty minutes, overnight if you can. The enzyme method has the amounts.
5. Leave it on. Do not rinse unless the label says to. The enzyme keeps working while the infill stays damp, and no cleaner runs down the driveway into the street drain.

Skip the whole-yard rinse too. In most yards the smell is concentrated in the pet zone, and in a D2 drought that zone is where the water should go.

Before you run a hose at all, check your water system's current rules. The National Weather Service's October 9 drought statement listed the City of Loris system as under mandatory water conservation, and rules can change from week to week.

Heavy rain on a dry yard shows how it handles water. Think back to the morning after each storm, or walk the yard after the next rain, and look for three things.

• Sand drifted to a low edge. The rain carried loose infill downhill, and it is still there this week. It brushes back into place; our page on sand on top of the turf after rain shows how.
• A spot that stayed damp for a day. That spot drains slower than the rest of the yard, and the smell will hang on there longest. The pour test on our page about why turf drains slowly finds it on a dry day, without waiting for rain.
• Mushrooms. University of Georgia Extension notes that mushrooms tend to come up when rain follows a long dry spell, which is what October brought. They point to buried organic matter under the turf. If they came up after the storms, they will likely come back after the next one, so pick them before the dog does and read what mushrooms in turf mean.

If the smell fades after your treatment and stays gone through the next rain, you do not need us. If it is back by the next damp morning, the residue is deeper than a hose and a sprayer reach. That calls for a proper flush, an enzyme treatment and then an antimicrobial, which in most yards keeps the next rain from bringing the smell back.

Pet-zone infill that has gone dark or crusted is a different case. It is saturated, and no treatment poured on top will hold, so it gets extracted and replaced, ideally with an odor-control infill.

Our pet odor treatment (flush, enzyme and antimicrobial) is part of a Premium Restoration, from $299 for up to 500 square feet, with a $75 to $150 add-on for heavy zones. Replacing crusted pet-zone infill runs $0.75 to $1.50 per square foot. Larger yards are on our price table.