Types Of Fungus In Grass

How To Identify Lawn Diseases

Something looking not quite right on your lawn, but you’re not sure what it is? Use this guide to common lawn diseases to help you ID it and learn how to treat it.

Anytime you grow a bunch of the same plants together, disease problems can take hold and begin to spread before you even notice theyre happening. This can be a real challenge for lawns, because lawns are made of hundreds of thousands of the same type of grass plants. Even when you give your lawn excellent care, the grass can still become infected with various lawn diseases that can lead to dead or discolored areas. Disease spores can float by in the air or hide in the soil, and when conditions are right, they multiply. Thats why its a good idea to protect your lawn, or fight back if disease has already taken hold, with Scotts® DiseaseEX Lawn Fungicide. It starts to work in just 24 hours to prevent and control 26 different lawn diseases for up to 4 weeks .

Here are some of the most common lawn diseases and how to identify them.

Common Lawn Fungal Diseases

There are quite a few fungal diseases that can impact lawns, but theyre usually pretty specialized, targeting specific lawn types, at certain times of year, under certain conditions. For example:

• Brown patch strikes during hot, humid weather.
• Fusarium blight prefers hot, drought conditions.
• Dollar spot tends to spring up when nights are cool and dew is heavy.

Before treating your lawn, its important to identify not only whether your lawn indeed has a fungal disease, but to identify the fungus itself.

All fungicides arent the same, and some diseases can be easily treated by making changes in your lawn care.

Knowing your grass type and recent weather conditions can make it easier to narrow down, but you may need help in figuring out exactly whats going on.

Your local cooperative extension center is your best resource for determining which diseases are most common in your area, or you can take a small baggie of the infected grass to your local garden center for help.

How To Identify Lawn Fungal Diseases

Signs that a lawn fungus may have caused a disease in your lawn include:

• White, yellow, or brown patches or rings that grow in diameter.
• Thin patches of frayed, distorted, or discolored grass blades.
• Gray, black, red, orange, or purple spots on blades or stems.
• Gray, black, or pink powdery or threadlike coatings on and around grass blades.
• Areas of darkened, wet-looking, slimy, or greasy-looking grass.

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How To Identify Lawn Fungus The Main Symptoms

You might be wondering, âwhat does grass fungus look like?â In many instances, the tell-tale signs and symptoms are similar. However, with so many varieties of fungus out there, each species manifests itself differently.

Letâs take a look at some of the most common defining characteristics from the kind of fungus you might encounter on your lawn.

• Snow Mold

Snow mold typically occurs in vascular plant species and moss, so if your grass has some moss, you may be more likely to see these. This kind of fungus typically appears late in the winter when the snow begins to melt, leaving behind a series of pale-colored circular patches. Some might be just a few inches wide, others several feet wide.

• Rust Disease

Rust disease creates rust-like spots on leaves, plants, and grass. You should see the orange-reddish color on the grass, and may notice it on your clothes or shoes after walking on the grass.

• Red Thread Disease

With red thread disease, youâll notice straw-colored patches in your grass. The fungus is shaped irregularly and appears a light red or pink color.

• Take-all Patches

With a take-all patch, the fungus infects and kills the roots o the grass, leaving behind circular changes in color throughout the lawn. You should notice red, yellow, and brown colors.

• Brown Patches

This is probably one of the most common symptoms of lawn fungus. Because the fungus impacts the ability of grass to grow, brown patches of various shapes and sizes are very common.

• Dollar Spots

• Mildew

Red Thread Lawn Disease

Red thread lawn disease shows up as bleached or red patches on the grass. However, you can easily control it when you identify it, and youll easily notice reddish threads on your shoes and mower. It typically appears on turf species such as bentgrass, bluegrass, fine fescue, and perennial ryegrass. Mild temperatures, too much shade, and humid conditions favor the disease and make it spread rapidly. This fungus wont kill your lawn, but it will make it look unappealing and may cause other lawn diseases too.

How to control it?

Providing adequate fertilization, regularly mowing, and not overwatering your lawn will help you control red thread lawn disease. You could also purchase a fungicide that will help control this disease, but its best to first try natural methods before switching to chemical solutions.

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How To Control Pythium

Proper lawn care maintenance which includes adequate fertiliser, reduction of thatch levels, aeration, morning watering that is deep and infrequent and mowing at regular intervals is recommended to prevent Pythium Disease.

Alternately if the above lawn care maintenance procedures do not work, fungicides with the Common Active Ingredient Metalaxyl-M can be used please first seek advice from your Local Garden Centre.

Types Of Fungus In Your Lawn

Are you seeing potential signs of fungus in your lawn? Fungus spread through spores and typically thrive in environments with poor airflow, excessive moisture, and low light conditions. This is why after a rainstorm, where clouds are prevalent and grounds are wet, you may notice signs of fungus. According to Graham Simmons, Director of Turf Grass Operations for Woerner Farms, Rainy and cloudy weather are prime conditions for fungus. Below is a list and photo examples of common types of fungus to watch out for in your lawn.

Dollar Spot

Are you seeing patches of brown grass, no bigger than a silver dollar, scattered around your lawn? Dollar spot fungus, characterized by its namesake, may be to blame. This type of fungus can occur on most warm and cool season varieties of grass. In addition to the silver dollar type patches, signs of dollar spot fungus can also be found on your leaf blades.

According to Mr. Simmons, On the leaf blade itself, an hour-glass shaped legion would be indicative of dollar spot. A fungicide that notably prevents and exterminates dollar spot fungus is Heritage with active ingredient azoxystrobin.

Gray Leaf

If you have noticed browning grass blades in your yard, your lawn may be under attack by the gray leaf fungus. The gray leaf fungus is characterized by dark gray or brown patches and spots on leaves and grass blades. It is common in the summer months and is mostly found on St. Augustine grass.

Brown Patch

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How To Treat Lawn Fungus

Choose the Correct Product

Some lawn fungicides are broad spectrum, meaning they can control the spread of many diseases while others are narrow spectrum, meaning they only affect a few disease.

Choosing the right product is where disease identification is important. Using the wrong product for a disease that was misidentified may have no effect on the disease at all.

Carefully read the product label to make sure you are choosing the right fungicide for your needs.

Apply Fungicide

Lawn Fungus can be tricky to cure and may need more than one application of fungicide. Most fungicides can be reapplied every 14 28 days, but be sure to read the product label.

If you apply the same fungicide many times, your lawn can build up a resistance to the active ingredients. Due to this resistance, fungus may appear in your lawn even if you put down a preventative treatment.

Natural Remedies For Lawn Fungus

There are many natural remedies for lawn fungus. These include baking soda solutions, neem oil, and compost teas. For the best results, you should use these natural options early in the season as a preventative rather than waiting to treat your lawn after you already have a fungus.

Neem Oil

This is one of the better natural solutions available. Dilute 2 oz of neem oil into 1 gallon of water. Apply 2.5 gallons of the spray solution per 1,000 sq ft. You will typically need to apply this solution two or three times on a 7 14 day interval to ensure effective control.

Baking Soda

Using a weak baking soda solution to treat lawn fungus issues can be effective but you must be cautious. Baking soda is a salt and like all salts, can damage your lawn.

Grass type and environmental conditions such as rainfall, air temperature and lawn stress all affect how your grass reacts to the baking soda, so you run the risk of doing more harm than good.

Compost Tea

While the use of compost teas are generally considered a good way to increase the organic content of your lawn, research on using them as a natural fungicide is limited. When applied in the spring, compost teas will help to boost the overall health of your lawn and can help your lawn to be less susceptible to getting a fungus in late spring or summer.

However, compost teas alone are usually insufficient in preventing turfgrass diseases.

Clove Oil

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The Best Lawn Care Starts By Preventing Lawn Fungus Conditions

The best way to prevent lawn fungus is to eliminate or minimize the turf disease conditions that make them happy to actively thrive and multiply. The conditions fungus finds favorable are the opposite for ideal grass growth.

Fungus diseases thrive with moisture. Moisture makes fungus fruit body grow and multiply at rapid rates. When grass is more or less consistently dry, a fungus has a much more difficult time establishing itself.

Now, you cannot control when and how much it will rain, but you can control when your sprinkler system comes on.

When you need to water, you can reduce fungus conditions in your lawn by running your sprinklers during the morning or early afternoon.

This watering practice will allow the grass the opportunity to dry off before nighttime which is when fungus disease like brown patch multiplies fastest. Lots of homeowners water after the sun has gone down using the argument of less water evaporation as the reasoning. Watering this way may be true for saving water, but it creates more favorable conditions for fungus growth.

Mowing the grass at a higher mower setting helps as well. When grass is mowed very low and scalped the new growth is very tender. The tender, juicy new growth is a perfect setting and host for fungi, compared to the older, tougher and seasoned grass blades.

Identify Rust Lawn Disease

There are a few different types of rust that can attack your lawn. One type, called rust diseases affect the plant’s nutrients and water supply which causes it to become undernourished or stressed causing an orange-yellow color on its blades as well as making them brittle enough for breaking easily with little force applied against them–this usually happens during periods where temperatures stay above 70 degrees Fahrenheit . Other forms lie dormant until autumn when conditions become wetter than normal.

When you notice the first signs of rust disease, it is important to act immediately. Lawns are most susceptible when they experience inconsistent watering or become over-wateredthis can lead them into more serious problems like stunting roots and lowering nutrient reserves which may cause a lack in nutrients such as iron . If Rust Is Currently Unchecked–or if symptoms have started appearing on your lawn but don’t yet look severe enough to indicate an emergency situation has begun), begin watching out near shady areas with compacted soil newly seeded patches that havent been established properly due to heavy traffic before planting time.

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Identify Pythium Lawn Disease

Pythium Blight is a terrible grass-killing disease that only gets worse in hot and humid weather. It likes to hang out near people, so its no surprise this thing has caused such an epidemic of dead patches all over the place! Pythium causes death by browning leaves while they wilt from high relative humidity levels or when daytime temperatures remain above 85° F with nighttime lows below 68 °F. These conditions make turf more susceptible than ever before – if you notice your lawn’s color fading rapidly then there might be risk for pythie infestation nearby.

Neave Knows Lawn Fungus Control

Neave Lawn Care has experts on staff who know how to treat lawn fungus and can help you identify and control your lawn fungus problem.

Many of the steps experts recommend to prevent lawn fungi fertilizing, dethatching, aerating are part of the comprehensive array of services we provide.

A great place to start is with our free lawn analysis. A Neave Lawn Care specialist will visit your property to analyze the health and condition of all your outdoor plant life.

Its your chance to ask as many questions as youd like and point out any concerns about your lawn and plant life. Well offer advice and solutions, and we can easily work these in to your lawn care service package. You can build a personalized lawn care service package that perfectly suits your needs.

If youre in the Hudson Valley, call us at . If youre in Westchester County, call from Connecticut, dial . Or, fill out our simple web form, and and well contact you. Your driveway never lets you down. Treat it to a nice new coat.

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Identifying Fighting And Preventing Lawn Diseases

When disease hits your lawn grasses, control can be difficult unless you know how to identify lawn and grass diseases and understand the causes behind them. Many common lawn and grass diseases have fungal problems at their source. Fortunately, proper lawn maintenance and care prevent and resolve most fungal lawn diseases. To keep your lawn healthy and fungus-free, learn:

How To Control Fusarium Patch

Proper lawn care maintenance which includes adequate fertiliser, reduction of thatch levels, aeration, morning watering that is deep and infrequent and mowing at regular intervals is recommended to prevent Fusarium Patch.

Alternately if the above lawn care maintenance procedures do not work, Fungicides with the Common Active Ingredient Iprodione should be used.

myhomeTURF recommends using Indigo Voltar an effective Broad Spectrum Fungicide that can be purchased through our myhomeTURF online store.

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Lawn Fungus Control: Preventing Lawn Fungus Taking Hold In The First Place

The unfortunate reality is that lawn disease often begins to spread before homeowners are aware of it, and as a result, they exacerbate the situation.

It is possible that the habits of watering and mowing will have a significant influence on illness in the long run.

For starters, it is advised that you water your grass first thing in the morning so that the sun has time to dry up your lawn. When you water your lawn in the evening, the water lingers on the grass and produces an environment that is conducive to fungus development.

The way you mow makes a difference as well. Maintaining the sharpness and cleanliness of your mower blades can help to avoid the spread of illness. In the event that you hire a professional lawn care company and they do not thoroughly clean their mower deck after each lawn , it is possible that they may transfer illness from one lawn to another.

Given the seriousness of a few of these lawn fungi, it is preferable to look to employ a preventative strategy rather than waiting for them to manifest themselves and wreak havoc on your lawns health.

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Why Do I Have Fungus In My Grass

Overwatering is a common cause of fungal infestation of the grass.

Despite being portrayed as horrible villains of the turf environments, not all fungi are bad. In fact, they are very active soil organisms that decompose organic matter and return nutrients to the soil. Fungi and fungi spores are present naturally in the grass some are pretty harmless, while others can make a mess of your grass.

However, it is usually not fungi but the wrong conditions that allow a lawn fungus to turn into a stuff of nightmares for lawn owners and gardeners. Lawn fungus usually attacks grass in times of distress, for instance, during rainy seasons, overwatering or even drought.

Nonetheless, for your ease, here is a list describing the most common causes of fungal diseases in the grass:

• Drought
• Soil compaction
• Improper mowing

We will discuss the below-mentioned causes more in the portion ahead where we discuss individual fungal diseases of the grass.

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How To Control Fairy Rings In Your Lawn

Proper lawn care maintenance which includes adequate fertiliser, reduction of thatch levels, aeration, morning watering that is deep and infrequent and mowing at regular intervals is recommended to prevent Fairy Rings.

If lawn maintenance practices do not work contact your Local Garden Centre however no chemical control options are currently registered.