|
| Hello,
I am a newbie in lawncare and would appreciate some advice on a lawn problem. I leveled and reseeded big parts of my front and back yard lawns 2 months ago. Since then the lawn has been doing OK until a few days ago I noticed a number of circles of dying grass. Spots are almost circular and about one to two feet in diameter.
|
Follow-Up Postings:
|
| Yup, that's fungal disease. You shouldn't be watering daily. A general rule of thumb is one inch of water a week, all at once, or split two times in the week. Your new grass is particularly susceptible to fungal diseases. You should definitely try to mow a day before any extended periods of rain, and I would use the bagger before heavy rains as well. I generally mow it a bit shorter if I know that a few consecutive days of rain are in the forecast. How high do you typically mow? What kind of grass do you have? No more fertilizer for your lawn till September. Fungicides don't cause damage like fertilizer burn. I don't understand why you think that it's interesting that there was damage on the untreated parts of your lawn, sounds pretty logical to me. |
|
- Posted by nearandwest 7 (My Page) on Tue, Jun 28, 11 at 8:20
| Fully agree with tiemco. Treat your back lawn immediately with fungicide if you haven't done so already. |
|
| Thank you for the replies. To clarify my reasoning about the fungicide: I was afraid I might have over-treated the front lawn since I applied fungicide 3 weeks apart. Therefore I assumed if anything there should be a problem with the front lawn and not the back yard. Now it starts to make sense: I might have kept the new grass in the back excessively moist and with no fuingus control. I usually mow around 2.5" and was thinking of raising it. I have lots of weeds that I want to crowd out. I will treat with fungicide immediately. What about the weeds control? Should I apply something like Weeds B Gone or wait to resolve the fungus problem? |
|
- Posted by dchall_san_antonio 8 San Antonio (My Page) on Wed, Jun 29, 11 at 21:06
| Pretty cool how it grows in circles, huh. I've seen circles up to 60 feet across at a local museum. If you have fescue, then you can raise the mower all the way up. That won't make the grass any more dense but it will help shade out weeds. To make the grass more dense, drop more seed at the end of summer. If you have Kentucky bluegrass, then keep it around 3 inches. Weed-B-Gone can be spot sprayed until the daytime high temps get into the high 80s. After that you have to wait until it cools off again. |
|
| Dchall and I will always disagree about mowing heights and tall fescue, especially when there is a fungal issue. The higher you go in hot humid weather the longer your grass will stay wet, and this increases your chances of fungal issues. The Scott's fungal treatment you are using is pretty mild, no where near as strong as fungicides you find at a place like Lesco, so you have some protection, but I have used it as well in the past and still gotten some fungus (I suspect you have areas of pythium blight, which isn't typically treated with the active ingredient in the Scott's). Your young grass will also be more susceptible to brown patch this summer. The whole idea that cutting your grass at 4" vs. 3" will somehow shade out the weeds and they will disappear is not very realistic. In fact Ohio State has shown that mowing lower in the summer can reduce fungal disease and create a thicker lawn (see link). http://buckeyeturf.osu.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&i d=1191&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=170 If you do decide to go lower you will however need to irrigate a bit more as your drought tolerance will be a bit lower. |
|
| tiemco is right. i can say almost with certainty that is pythium blight. i know i had it. Scott's fungus treatment will NOT kill pythium. fyi. a too heavy application of fertiizer is one culprit. after that mowing when wet sllows wheels to spread it. you need to find something like Subdue MAXX on ebay. expensive but a little goes a long way. generic is mefenoxam. only then will you control. guaranteed to strike year to year otherwise. |
|
- Posted by dchall_san_antonio 8 San Antonio (My Page) on Thu, Jun 30, 11 at 2:12
| Thanks for that link tiemco. I had not read that before. Here it is in clickable form. Good stuff. kjeliaz, being a newby you might be tempted to fertilize rather often. Please wait at least until Labor Day to fertilize again. Northern grasses should get 2/3 to 3/4 of their annual nitrogen in the fall. Also I reread your first post. You were watering correctly to get the grass established. Now that it is up and being mowed, it is time to back off on the watering as has been indicated above. Frequent watering probably caused the disease, but you can't count on removal of the water to eradicate it. At least when you back off on the water it should not spread. |
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in. If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Lawn Care Forum
Instructions
- You must be a registered member and logged in to post messages on our forums.
- Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review the contents and make changes.
- After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
- It is illegal to post copyrighted material without the owner's consent.
- HTML codes are allowed in the message field only.
- No advertising is allowed in any of the forums.
- If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
- If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.