How To Prevent And Get Rid Of Brown Patch Lawn Disease
The fungus that causes Brown Patch lawn disease is present in many areas. Disease prevention is very difficult if the grass species is susceptible.
Proper watering in the early morning though mid-day to prevent wet grass at night may be of some, though limited, benefit. Proper mowing on a frequent basis to promote air movement and drying of the leaf blades may be of more benefit when preventing and battling Brown Patch.
More tips for treating brown patch:
- Use moderate amounts of nitrogen fertilizer.
- Fungicides can be effective if applied before the onset of the disease
- Dont over- or under-fertilize your turf, as that can encourage Brown Patch.
How To Identify Watering Issues
One of the ways to identify if drought is causing the brown spots is to tug on the grass in a brown area. If the brownness is caused by lack of water, the grass will be firmly rooted and it wont pull up easily. Another way to test is take a screwdriver and push it down into both a green area and a brown area of your lawn. If the screwdriver easily penetrates the ground in the green area, but wont easily penetrate the brown area it is likely that lack of water is causing the brown areas.
Another simple way to identify drought is to look at your lawn to see if the areas that are green are around sprinkler heads, or in the shade. We often get calls from people thinking that they have some kind of insect problem in their lawn, but upon inspection, there is a bright green patch of grass around each sprinkler head and then it is brown in between the heads. If it is green around the heads, but not elsewhere, lack of water or ineffective sprinklers is your problem.
Click here to learn more about how much water your lawn should be receiving.
Why Does My Lawn Have Brown Patch
Your yard can become infected during a period of cooler temperatures. The disease can take hold and develop well below 80 degrees Fahrenheit, but doesnt spread and become apparent to the naked eye until temperatures and humidity levels rise. Dew, mist, or rain on leaf blades in these conditions can contribute to the rise of Brown Patch.
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Whats Causing Brown Patches On My Lawn
Finding brown patches on the green lawn you work so hard to care for can be disappointing and distressing. Unfortunately, Midwest summers lead not only to increased use of the outdoor spaces around your home but also to summer lawn diseases that can devastate even the best-maintained lawns. Lawn diseases like brown spot, Pythium blight and dollar spot love warm, humid weather and thrive during the months of May through September. But they arent the only causes of brown patches in your lawn.
Learn more about all the situations that can leave brown patches in your lawn and what to do if your brown patches turn out to be one of the three most common fungal diseases that attack grass in the summer.
Keep It Under Control
The good news is that your turf can recover from brown patch. The bad news? You may have to wait until the active growing season to see an improvement in appearance. While a fungicide application can help prevent spread to other areas, spots that have rotted will need to regrow.
Meanwhile, steps should be taken to ensure youre not transferring the fungus to healthy parts of your lawn. Affected areas should not be mowed, as that could cause diseased clippings to deposit elsewhere, spreading the infection. You should also avoid walking over the area so your shoes dont transport the spores. Finally, its important to not apply fertilizer during an outbreak. Sure, youll feed your lawn, but youll also feed the fungus, too.
Because brown or yellow spots can be the result of a number of causes, its important to have your lawn assessed by an experienced landscape professional. If brown patch is confirmed, proper treatment is critical. Self-diagnosis and treatment could make the problem worse. Our teams are experienced in treating brown patch, and can help make the process stress-free. Request a free quote or give us a call at .
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How To Fix A Brown Patch In Your Lawn + 4 Other Common Lawn Diseases
- May 28, 2020
Youre using your electric lawn mower regularly, watering on a schedule, and using the best lawn fertilizers. Even with all of this care, you might still find patches that look dead or discolored.
In attempts to restore these areas of the lawn, you might try to water more or you might use some type of lawn repair formula. These simple solutions might work to address some issues with dead or brown grass. However, there are lawn diseases that will get worse if you try these common solutions.
If that is the case, your lawn is probably infected by some type of grass fungus. Many of these grass diseases will actually feed off the extra water and fertilizer you apply, and this could result in more discoloration or dead spots in the lawn.
In this post, we are going to look at how to fix brown patches in a lawn and other common lawn diseases. Among the most common grass diseases are red thread, summer patch, powdery mildew, and dollar spots.
Which Fungicides To Pick
Clemsons HGIC guide also provides a table of fungicide active ingredients and their effectiveness on brown patch fungus:
Some that the table lists as excellent are:
- Pyraclostrobin in Pillar G Intrinsic Fungicide.
- Fluoxastrobin in Disarm 0.25.
- Azoxystrobin, both with and without Propicanazol.
Its a good idea to go ahead and pick up two different fungicides. Alternating which ones you use can help prevent a buildup of resistance to any certain fungicide.
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Professional Services To Save You Time
With so many tasks requiring your attention every day, giving your lawn the special care it needs can be a challenge in every season. Because we know how busy you are, we offer professional lawn care in Dallas that take care of everything, including the control of diseases like brown patch on your lawn.
Dont let the hot Texas climate damage your lawn, when the professionals at Gecko Green can keep your grass healthy and vibrant with our year-round services!
Brown Spots In Grass: Identification And Prevention
Your lawn could have brown spots for a variety of reasonsfungus, excessive thatch, and poor soil quality, to name a few. Well show you how to identify, repair, and prevent brown spots.
No one wants unsightly brown spots taking over their once-green stretch of lush, green lawn. But in order to solve this problem, you have to know exactly what youre dealing with. There are multiple causes of brown spots, from poor soil quality to dog urine and over-fertilization. But dont fret. This Old House will show you how to identify the brown spots in your grass, repair them, and prevent them.
Once youve taken care of your brown spot, This Old House Reviews Team recommends hiring a professional lawn care company to handle all of your lawn care needs to keep your grass hardy and robust. TruGreen offers five annual plans with options like overseeding and aeration that can help you avoid brown spots. To get a free quote, call 866-817-2287 or fill out this easy form.
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How To Fix Brown Patches In Your Lawn
Your lush green grass has been overtaken by dead brown patches and you need to know how to fix dead grass. These unsightly patches of dead spots in your lawn threaten to ruin the beautiful outdoor aesthetic of all your hot summer barbecues and events and spread disease to your grass.
Brown patches are caused by factors including, but not limited to foot traffic, lack of fertilization, fungus, grub infestation, animal urine, chemical spills, and/or drought. Dead grass patches are also more likely to occur in older lawns than younger ones.
Before you start repairing the brown patches on your lawn, study the growth patterns of these areas to see what might be contributing to the dead grass conditions. Understanding the underlying factors will help you avoid recurring brown patches in your yard.
While repairing brown patches is not particularly difficult, you should be aware of best practices and recommendations for the optimal grass regrowth. We are going to equip you with the tools and knowledge for how to fix a brown patch in your lawn through two main methods: reseeding bare spots and patching with sod.
What Is Brown Patch
Brown patch is a soil-living fungus which becomes active in humid months where temperatures reach the mid 80s during the day, and mid to upper 70s overnight.
Like the name would lead you to believe, brown patch causes a brownish discoloration of your turfgrass. More specifically, it starts out with lesions on the grass blades .
As brown patch develops, these lesions spread to cover the entire grass blade, causing thinning and matting of the turf. On shorter lawns, these patches may appear to have a “smoke ring” of dark gray around the outer edge.
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Can My Lawn Grow Back After Brown Patch Pythium Blight Or Dollar Spot
The only way the grass can recover from dollar spot and brown patch damage is for the grass to grow enough that the damaged blades are pushed up and mowed off, revealing new and undamaged blades below. Tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass grass types grow more slowly as temperatures rise so it would take weeks or months for the grass to recover. And, it may require fall seeding to get the lawn back into shape. Thats why preventing damage before disease development is so important.
The best products for preventing and controlling lawn fungus are very expensive. Understanding turf diseases, their control, and when and how to apply them is very important. To get help with your lawn and protect it from fungus, request an estimate for disease control from a professional lawn care service.
Causes Of Brown Spots In Lawn
One of the most common questions that Im sure every lawn company hears is, Why are there brown spots in my lawn? No one wants the grass to be greener on the neighbors side of the fence. There are a few different reasons why you can get brown spots in your lawn. Today were going to identify the most common reasons for brown spots and help determine what might be causing yours.
The three most common causes we have seen for brown spots in your lawn are ineffective/inefficient watering or drought, billbug grubs, and sod webworm. Each of these three causes can cause the dreaded brown spots. However, if you look closely, you can determine which of these three is the culprit.
Lets start with the most common: watering issues.
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Prevent Brown Patch Pythium Blight & Dollar Spot Contact Ryan Lawn & Tree
If youre worried about losing your lawn permanently as you watch it turn brown, piece by piece, consider contacting the Pros at Ryan Lawn & Tree for a free inspection and quote. Ryan Lawn & Tree goes the extra mile to find and utilize only the best products that arent sold in big box stores. Why? Because they work better to control disease and save your beautiful lawn!
RYAN Pros study the latest university research to make sure they are using the best products at the best rate and times to achieve the best results for your lawn. Our educated, experienced lawn care experts will examine your brown patches and determine the cause, then give you a no-obligation quote for providing the appropriate preventive fungicide program. Just a quick phone call to 855.216.2293 will get you started! Call today!
Reseed With Resistant Grass Varieties
Where all other efforts fail you may need to reseed with a turfgrass variety that has known resistance to this fungus. A variety of grasses are available with moderate resistance to the Rhizoctonia fungus. If a brown patch is an annual occurrence, consider top-seeding your lawn with resistant grasses. Check with your local university extension service on recommendations for resistant grass species.
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How To Identify Control And Prevent Brown Patch
In summer, your lawn serves as the welcome mat for pool parties, barbecues and Fourth of July celebrations.
But the seasonal heat can bring unwelcome, uninvited visitors, too: brown patch and other summer fungus lawn diseases.
I kind of jokingly tell people when you wake up in the morning and go out, and all you hear is the hum of you neighbors air conditioning, its already hot and humid, thats perfect brown patch weather, says Dennis Patton. Hes the ornamentals, turf and extension master gardeners agent for the Kansas State Extension in Johnson County, where brown patch is a common headache.
If youve seen those tell-tale brown splotches or signs of other lawn diseases appearing across your yard, heres how to stop brown patch in its tracks to get your home lawn back to its green best, and how to make fungicide a part of your lawn care arsenal so it doesnt crop back up next year.
How To Plant Grass Seed In Bare Spots
Perhaps you are already familiar with how to seed your lawn. However, reseeding dead spots in a lawn calls for added attention to detail. We have outlined the steps on how to plant grass seed in bare spots for your next lawn repair.
- Remove Debris
Before you start seeding the brown patch, remove any leaves or debris from the area to avoid damage. This removes any obstacles in distributing the seeds evenly among the dead grass. If the brown patch in your lawn was caused by urine or chemical spills, thoroughly rinse the area several times before reseeding to dilute any harmful chemicals.
- Break up the Soil
Refresh the soil of the brown patch by taking a rake or a garden cultivator to till the ground in your summer yard. This will help ensure that the soil is loose and ready to take in the new seed.
- Add Compost
Using compost is a great way to add nutrients back into the soil. Add a 2 to 3-inch layer of compost or loamy soil and use the rake again to mix it with the existing soil.
- Even out the Surface
Use the top of the rake to make a flat and even surface to start sprinkling the grass seed.
Evenly distribute a thin layer of grass seed over your brown patch.
- Protect the Seeds
If you choose to sprinkle the seed on top without pre-mixing it in the soil, place a thin layer of straw over the area to prevent birds from eating the seeds. Once the grass starts to bud, remove the straw.
- Keep the Area Lightly Watered
- Lightly Fertilize
- Wait to Mow
- Monitor the Area
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Fixing Summer Patch Dead Spots
Summer patch is a lawn disease that results in straw-like areas in the lawn. This is caused when the fungus Magnaporthe poae infects the roots, making it difficult for the grass to absorb water and nutrients. If it progresses enough, it can kill an area of the lawn, so you may need to work on how to fix dead grass after addressing the infection.
Summer patch does well in high heat, humidity, and areas with heavy soil compaction. Over-fertilizing can also contribute to issues with summer patch. Once it is established, summer patch can be difficult to get rid of. To prevent this grass fungus, avoid over-fertilizing and over-watering. You can also apply a lawn fungus treatment in late spring as a preventative measure.
Other Reasons Your Grass Is Turning Brown And Dying
- Your lawn may have buried debris thats causing problems.
- Sloping yards could have an erosion issue. Ground covers are a great way to reduce erosion on slopes. Succulents make pretty, easy-to-care for ground covers.
- Tree roots make growing grass tough but you can do it when you use shade-tolerant grasses within your climate zone.
- Different areas of your lawn require different care, and thats especially true of sunny spots. If your grass is turning brown, it could be because its not getting enough water. Lawns typically need an inch of water a week to stay healthy. Picking the right sprinkler for spots in your yard is one of the best ways to keep it healthy.
- If different spots of your yard turned brown, you may just have a mix of grasses. Some grasses will go dormant while others will continue to grow.
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How To Prevent Brown Patch
As previously stated, this particular turf disease will be most successful if your lawn is wet going into the evening and night. To prevent brown patch water your lawn in the early morning, preferably between 3:00am – 8:00am.
Proper airflow is also crucial to preventing brown patch. As previously stated, brown patch prefers moist areas so if you increase airflow in troublesome areas, it will help to dry off your turfgrass. Do your best to increase circulation in these areas by removing unnecessary objects or foliage in your backyard. Also, a proper regiment of aeration will help to strengthen your lawn and increase airflow to the root zone.
How To Treat Brown Patches In Your Yard
Years ago, scientists took a soil sample from deep below the ice in Antarctica and found something: brown patch.
Brown patch is a fungus causing brown circles in your lawn during the hot humid months of summer. Why did they find it in Antarctica then? Because brown patch can remain dormant for many years. The reason you notice it now is because it has become active, the good news is we can control it!
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