A few weeks ago, a friend from church asked me, “What is this brown patch in my friend’s yard?”
I said, “That sounds like the same question I had two weeks ago.”
As we discovered last week, there are many reasons for having a brown yard. Mechanical reasons are addressed by changing our methods. Patiently waiting will solve most of your brown lawn problems. As the season progresses, the markers for the precise fungi disappear in the brown dormant grass.
The fungi reside in the blades of the cut dried grass.
The first recommendation I make for any disease that attacks our lawns is to remove the blades of grass. Put a grass-catcher on the back of your mower and remove all the infected grass from your lawn.
Take the grass clippings to the curb as you would mow. Most diseases will reside on the blades and remain dormant. The rain infects the remaining healthy grass.
As the rain hits the spore sacs, they will fly to the next live blade that has not yet been infected.
Diagnostics is difficult when the infected blades of grass are shriveled to the point that you would have many problems in trying to grow the disease in an agar culture.
Most of the diseases that you encounter are fungi that would do well in moist, warm weather, not dry.
Brown Patch or Rhizoctonia solani first has circular patterns of brown grass on the turf. This is where the disease that makes these brown patches reside.
This dead area on the lawn looks sunken. The center of the area looks as if it may be less affected.
Normally, you can see the discoloration on the individual blades of grass.
First, look at the green blades and plants that are affected by the disease. Affected blades will have a dark brown edge, and as you go to the middle of the blade and down the blade, you will see irregular grayish colored leaf spots.
On recently browned dried blades of grass, you can still see variations in color of the leaves.
For this disease to do well, you need to have temperatures above 85 degrees during the day and not below 60 degrees, and humid nights. Over-fertilizing, dense turfs, and thatch over half an inch thick also contribute to the potential of this disease doing well.
Over-irrigating your lawns with all of these other factors also adds to this disease. Frayed grass blades that haven’t been cut cleanly also add to this disease.
If you can mechanically solve the issues, you can begin to manage the disease.
First, reduce heavy nitrogen fertilizers getting on your lawn during the middle to late summer or early fall.
If you are going to irrigate your lawn, you are going to set your irrigation timer so that the water is on your lawn for only six hours or less.
Start the timer to come on early in the morning so that the blades of grass dry quickly and the disease does not have a chance to grow. Your lawn mower needs to have sharp blades to cut the grass cleanly to reduce the surface area where the disease can thrive.
You are also going to need to de-thatch and aerate the lawn faithfully. I would also get rid of the grass immediately in the affected area of the disease.
The blades that you rake out, bag the cut grass up, and take the bag to the curb. Fungicides designed for Brown Patch applied when this disease first appears will provide the best chance to control the disease.
Among the fungicides that are registered for Brown Patch are Heritage G, Banner MAXX II, Scott’s DiseaseEx, Propiconazole 14.3, and BioAdvanced Fungus Control. They all have their benefits and their liabilities.
One of the other reasons for a brown lawn even during wetter years is that your lawn mower deck is too low. Your mower is scalping your lawn.
I have had my lawn mower deck set at three and a half inches for years.
There is one more reason for a lawn to be brown. We will explore that next, along with several ways to connect the problem.
I hope that you enjoy your stroll through your garden this week and that if you have any problems, drop me an e-mail at ericlarson546@yahoo.com.
Check out this site for more tips: https://farmtilling.com/best-fungicide-for-brown-patch/