1.Understand Why Lawn Disease Starts
Before you get ready to fight off lawn disease, you need to figure out why it happens. There are three common reasons for lawn disease:
- The environmental conditions encourage their growth
- Your type of grass is vulnerable to the specific disease
- There is a pathogen presence in your soil
Being aware if your lawn has the perfect pathogen environment will help you prevent the growth.
2. Learn About the Most Common Lawn Diseases
There are about 5 common lawn diseases your lawn might face such as brown patch, large patch, summer patch, pink snow mold, and Pythium blight.
Brown Patch
Brown patches are some of the most common in cool season lawns. As the name suggests, you will be able to identify it by the large patches.
However, you also have to be careful once you spot the signs because it could already have spread to a big area of the lawn.
It’s easy to treat brown spots since they respond to fungicide rather quickly.
Large Patch
Large patches might start small, but they can grow as big as the size of a car. Unlike the brown spots, the discoloration of the large patches won’t be as dramatic.
The infected area will show signs of discoloration a shade lighter than the original turf.
Summer Patch
The summer patch, also known as the necrotic ring, is not as common as other lawn diseases. However, once you notice it’s quite difficult to manage.
You can start to see signs in the late summer as tan or light brown circular patches.
Pink Snow Mold
Don’t let the name fool you – these pink patches won’t be easy to identify. The pink discoloration only happens for a short period of time before it fades to a different color.
Although the name suggests it happens due to snow, it’s not entirely true. Pink snow mold can even spread in humid areas year-round.
If you suspect pink snow, you will be able to identify it by the circular patches that appear to be water soaked.
Pythium Blight
Pythium blight is a disease that starts with leaves and attacks vulnerable turf. Since this is a type of water mold it happens more often when the soil drains poorly.
If you suspect of pythium blight, look for 3-inch circular areas with a gray watersoaked look.
3. Don’t Spread Around the Fungus
One of the reasons why people can’t control grass infections is because they carry the fungus with them to other areas of the yard.
The disease the plagues most yards can spread around in many ways such a lawnmower, wheelbarrow, and even in your shoes. To stop this from happening you should avoid using the same tools in the infected and non-infected areas.
For example, if you’re working on your lawn, use plastic wraps on your shoes. When you move from the unhealthy area of the grass to the healthy area, remove the wraps from your feet.
Also, be careful about infected grass clippings, so they don’t spread around the lawn.
4. Give Fungicide a Try
If you want to control the fungus infestation, you need to