Lawn Fungus

If your lawn is starting to turn yellow in summer, there’s a pretty good chance it has disease issues.

Turf disease starts as small lesions and will quickly spread making the turf appear dead or drought stressed. These pictures are of leaf spot. The first shows how the disease starts and the second taking over the yard.
Examples of Fungus

We are starting to see a lot of lawn fungus such as red thread, leaf spot, dollar spot and, brown patch. These turf diseases become active when humidity and temperatures are right. Given that the conditions are ideal right now there are a few things that you can do as a homeowner and that we can do as your turf care provider.

Watering should be done early morning if possible. Watering in the evening or overnight can leave the turf damp and promote the spread of the disease. When watering, avoid short bursts of water daily and favor deep soaking once or twice a week. This will ensure that the water gets deep into the soil where the roots can absorb it. Shallow watering will equate to shallow root structure and will not stand in drought conditions. Keep in mind that turf needs one inch of water per week to survive and one and a half to be healthy.

Keep your mower blades sharp and clean. Dull blades tear the grass instead of cutting it creating lesions that disease will easily enter and infect the plant. Washing the blades after each mow will also mitigate the spread of the disease. Lastly raise the height of your mower so that the turf is at least 3.5 inches and mow regularly. Shorter turf will not only lose color faster it is more susceptible to disease and turf that is allowed to grow high and then scalped down will go into shock and most certainly contract disease. A good rule of thumb is 30%, never take off more than that or the turf will suffer. Lawns should be mowed at least once a week and can be mowed every five days when it is growing quickly.

We recommend a fungicide treatment as soon as conditions are right for disease. The earlier we catch the problem the better, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we can catch it early enough often times one treatment will prevent a problem, however, if it is let go for too long we will have to apply a second treatment 17 – 22 days later to gain control of the disease. 

Call or email us TODAY and we will add a fungicide treatment to your program and protect your turf this summer!