How To Protect Your Lawn From Red Thread
The fungus that infects the turf lives in the thatch and soil and can be spread by dead infected plant material and by mowing and other mechanical maintenance. Be sure to clean your lawnmower after cutting your grass to decrease the chances of spreading the disease.
Fungicide applications are usually not necessary in dealing with red thread. The basic treatment for red thread is to fertilize the lawn with the proper amount of nitrogen as part of an ongoing feeding program.
A fertilizer application will often help your turf outgrow the damage and protect it from other potential diseases. But keep this in mind, some turf diseases are aggravated by excessive fertilization, so be sure to have an expert diagnose which disease your lawn is facing before fertilizing begins.
Dont hesitate to connect with the Lush Lawn team for treatment options if you come across it on your lawn. Contact your local Lush Lawn branch to request our services.
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How To Treat Your Maryland Lawn For Red Thread Disease
Green lawns are all the rage. Imagine a yellow lawn or a brown lawn. It just wouldnt be the same. And one with spots? Forget about it.
A lawn is definitely more inviting when its a nice shade of green. That would be your preference for an enjoyable summer lawn in Maryland. We completely understand. We like a green lawn, too.No one wants to see splotches and rough spots and blemishes. If you see some weird light or even pinkish spots showing up in your lawn, it can certainly be a cause for concern. And youre not wrong to worry. In fact, certain conditions can cause this issue, which can actually be a turf disease. One particular disease that can result in patches like this is red thread. Lets look at what red thread is, what causes it, and how you can get rid of red thread lawn disease for good and get that uniform, green, healthy lawn back.
How Can I Prevent Red Thread From Appearing In My Lawn
Heres a check list to help prevent Red Thread from appearing in your lawn:
- Have a fungicide application applied to your lawn at an early period of the year.
- Brush off your lawn mower blades after cutting each of your individual lawns.
- Ask your lawn company what lawn fertiliser they are using. They should have more than one fertiliser available to use.
- Take action when discovered at all. Dont allow the problem to get worse.
Having a fungicide application applied to your lawn at an early period of the year will vastly decrease the chances of your lawn being infected. The main problem is that most people wont react to Red Thread until they see it, at which point it is too late for most fungicides to work effectively.
Fungicide applications will certainly minimise costs in the long run and can also be a cheaper method of preventing other unwanted diseases from appearing.
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Is Your Lawn In Bad Shape
Dont worry, Fantastic Services can bring it back to life! The lawn care plan we create is personalised to your preferences and your turfs needs, so you can be sure that your lawn will stay healthy all year round.
The gardening teams we send are proficient enough to perform a large variety of lawn care services, including aeration and fertilising. Dedicated to their job, the gardeners always come fully equipped with everything needed to leave your turf looking neat and clean after every visit.
Apply A Summer Fertiliser
Red Thread and Pink Patch favour lawns that are deficient in nitrogen so the first step is to apply a summer fertiliser.
This will put much-needed nitrogen back into the soil which will aid grass growth and health.
Do this in the summer, NOT the autumn. If you apply it too late in the year you run the risk of your lawn becoming infected with Fusarium Patch as the weather turns colder.
Water it in and wait a couple of weeks and then
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Lawn Fungus Treatments For Dollar Spots
Dollar spots are small circular patches in the lawn that can get up to a few inches in diameter. This is a grass disease that is the result of a fungal infection. The fungus tends to thrive in lawns that are undernourished and areas where the air is moist but the soil is dry.
The first step in preventing dollar spots is to make sure you are providing your lawn with enough nitrogen. Along with that, you want to water your lawn deeply a few times a week. You may also want to consider aerating your lawn to help water and nutrients reach roots.
Grass diseases can be very difficult to get under control once they are established in your lawn. That is why you should focus on prevention. Develop a lawn care plan based on the type of grass you have and the conditions in your yard. Your lawn wont be as vulnerable if you are mowing your lawn to the correct height, providing the right amount of water and using the right fertilizer.
Get all the tools you need to ensure your lawn is looking its best at WORX!
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What Does Red Thread Disease Look Like
The first clue that your lawn may be suffering from redthread disease is the appearance of small straw-coloured patches in thesward. These patches usually have anirregular shape and you may notice a pinkish tinge to them.
Look a bit closer and youll see that there are tiny pink-colouredthreads attached to each blade of grass. There may also be a pale colouredcobweb like structure at the base of the plant.
This is typical of red thread disease.
If your lawn is showing slightly different symptoms, it may be suffering from a different lawn disease. Check our troubleshooting guide
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Manage Red Thread With Cultural Best Practices
Diseases, such as red thread, are often harbored and survive in thatch. Managing thatch layersthrough yearly aeration and, if necessary, fall dethatchingcould help better manage the severity of the disease. Remember, thatch is not dead grass on top of the soil. It sits below the soils surface. Using a soil probe is the best way to determine the severity of thatch.
Managing pH and nitrogen levels is also important. Requesting a soil test can determine whether the soil doesnt have the proper amount of nutrients, which could contribute to the severity of red thread or other diseases.
In terms of fertilizing, its important to keep in mind that over-fertilizing can contribute to the problem. Thats one of the reasons its important to apply slow-release fertilizer at only the recommended rate and at regular intervals throughout the season. Extra fertilizer between regularly scheduled applications wont cure red thread. What fertilizer can do is keep grass healthy and put it in a position to outgrow the disease as conditions become less favorable for fungal growth. It can take a couple of weeks from the time red thread stops being active for the turf to recover and turn a more uniform green.
Collecting grass clippings after each mow can also decrease the number of fungal threads that are reintroduced back into the turf. Watering correctly can also ensure youre not essentially feeding the fungus.
It can take two or more years of careful fertilizing to prevent red thread.
How To Fight Red Thread Lawn Disease: Ask An Expert
Winter is bearing down fast, but there’s still plenty to do in the garden. What’s up in yours? Got a question? Get answers from Ask an Expert, an online question-and-answer tool from Oregon State University’s Extension Service. OSU Extension faculty and Master Gardeners reply to queries within two business days, usually less. To ask a question, simply go to the OSU Extension website and type in a question and the county where you live. Here are some questions asked by other gardeners. What’s yours?
Courtesy of OSU Extension Service
What’s this pink visitor in the lawn?
Q: The images included, taken Nov. 28, are from the grass area in the back yard. The grass area is the highest ground in the garden and our lot might be the highest in the block. The grass area in question was “solarized” and sown with dwarf rye grass two or three years back. The effort was to remove the clover that brought honey bees too close to the play area, . The clover is under control, but the second season after sowing I noticed the brown patches in the new grass. At first I thought it might be urine, crane fly or some grub. Spring growth the next season sort of filled in the dead grass areas and concerns were put at rest. I did lift some sod but found no obvious intruders. Currently, there are more brown spots in the grass and the older brown spots now support this pink gelatinous curiosity. Any insight as to this pink visitor would be appreciated.
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How To Prevent Red Thread In Your Lawn
The best course of action to prevent red thread from appearing in your lawn is regular maintenance and garden hygiene.
Over time your lawn can become compacted due to heavy rains, overwatering and constant foot traffic, making it harder for water to go through. Lawns with poor water retention levels are more vulnerable to fungal attacks. The increased humidity in the turf, in combination with high temperatures, creates a perfect ground for fungi to strike. Aerating your lawn can help with water transmission and air penetration.
Heavy layers of cut grass create ideal conditions for fungi to thrive. After mowing, always dispose of the cuttings that you dont plan to compost. Grass cuttings from a diseased lawn should not be used in compost, as it can once again spread the disease. Moreover, if your lawn had a red thread outbreak, make sure to remove and clean your lawnmower brushes to reduce the chances of re-infecting the lawn.
Ensure that the soil has sufficient levels of nitrogen by regularly feeding your lawn with nitrogen-rich fertiliser.
Symptoms Of The Red Thread Disease
If your lawn has become infected by red thread, you might notice the following symptoms:
- Lawn patches with a red tint at first, that become brown over time. Sometimes, they might even look bleached in appearance
- The size of the patching varies between 8 cm and 25 cm in diameter however, in some cases, a bigger area can suffer damage
- The appearance of the fungal infection might vary. For instance, you might see a red, pike-like growth on the grass blades, or have a pinkish flocky growth that resembles snow . Either way, both growths indicate the presence of red thread in your lawn.
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How Do You Get Rid Of Red Thread Lawn Disease
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. Consequently, how do you get rid of red thread?
The basic treatment for red thread is to fertilize the lawn with the proper amount of nitrogen as part of an ongoing feeding program. Nitrogen applied to the lawn in the fall will nourish the re-emerging turf in the spring, but much of that nitrogen will be gone by late spring.
Likewise, how do you treat red thread lawn disease? Treatment. Feeding the lawn with a nitrogen based fertilizer will help the grass recover and help prevent future attacks. Red Thread can be treated using a fungicide that contains benomyl or carbendazim.
Also question is, will red thread go away?
Red thread will often go away on its own if the conditions dry out and it stays warm. However, this can take a while and if you do not keep a close on eye on your lawn, other diseases can infect your grass.
Why does my lawn get red thread?
Red thread is a common cause of patches of dead grass on lawns during wet summers and in autumn. It is caused by the fungus Laetisaria fuciformis. Red thread will rarely kill the grass completely, and the patches will recover with appropriate remedial action.
How Can You Help To Keep Your Lawn Healthy
- Dont mow too low a scalped lawn is more susceptible to disease
- Mow little and often dont let the grass grow long and then cut it really short. Its too stressful for the plants
- Regular feeding
- Move lawn ornaments and toys every other day so that all the grass gets all the sunshine it possibly can
- Clear up autumn leaves as soon as they fall
- Scarify and aerate at least once a year to remove food for bad microbes and maintain the optimum soil structure for good soil microbes.
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Why Do You Have Red Thread
It is normal for lawns to get a mild dose of Red Thread when conditions are optimal. This fungal disease is really a symptom of improper watering, poor grass, poor soil or all of these things.
IMPROPER WATERINGThe fungus thrives when the surface of the soil lawn is wet and the roots are dry. Also, watering too often will cause the disease to get worse. The solution is to not water more than every 3-4 days per week and make sure to water in the morning or early afternoon, so the grass does not stay wet all night. Water on the blades will cause Pink Patch to get worse. Also, one or more rounds of Liquid Aeration will help the water move down into the soil and can make the disease less severe.
POOR GRASSPink Patch is most severe on Perennial Ryegrass, which is susceptible to a lot of diseases, such as Rust, Dollar Spot, Red Thread, and more. Builders and landscapers plant a lot of Perennial Ryegrass because it sprouts quickly. Homeowners often buy a Perennial Ryegrass and Kentucky Bluegrass blend and seed it at a heavier rate than the manufacturer recommends. If a little is good, a lot is better. Right? Wrong! The Ryegrass takes over because it comes up faster than the Bluegrass. So even though they planted a blend of the two, they end up with a Ryegrass lawn that is susceptible to all kind of diseases. Our solution is try Slice Seeding in the late Summer to get some more resistant types of grass in your lawn.
What Causes Grass Diseases In Northern Virginia Lawns
Unfortunately, all lawns have diseases. Yep. You didnt expect us to say that, did you? But its true. No one wants to hear that. It can make you look at your lawn differently for sure. While disease is present, it doesnt have to be visible though.
In fact, lawn diseases only emerge when your lawn is stressed out. Its kind of like how you might get a headache or aches and pains when your anxiety levels run high. While you might be stressed out by deadlines, family squabbles, and a to-do list that keeps growing, your lawn gets stressed out for other reasons.
It can start with something as simple as mowing improperly. You want to mow your Northern Virginia lawn to a 3.5- to 4-inch height. This means mowing it weekly during the growing season and removing no more than one-third of the grass blades during any single cut. For a quality mow, you want sharp mower blades so you dont tear your grass versus cut it. Watering correctly is also important. If you water too much or at night when your lawn cant dry out before nightfall, then you encourage disease-causing conditions, such as persistent wet, humid areas. Another thing you want to make sure is in place is proper lawn fertilization. A soil test helps determine what your lawn is lacking, and fertilizing based on these results means you wont under- or over-fertilize. This ensures you dont have nutrient deficiencies that can stress your lawn and encourage disease.
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How To Keep Red Thread Under Control
Red thread is a fungal infection caused by the fungus, laetisaria fuciformis. This disease will cause irregularly shaped patches of tan or red throughout your lawn. But it really only comes down to doing one thing, to ensure you never have to worry about it.
The truth is, almost any lawn is susceptible to this turf fungus. However, it is not uncommon for some lawns to have more issues than neighboring properties. This is because of different soil conditions, maintenance, and water patterns.
So, lets take a look at what causes red thread, the negative effects and point out the best way to control it.
Should I Increase Nitrogen Levels To Cure Red Thread
Its common conception that lack of nutrition or nitrogen are the main causes of Red Thread. This is not entirely true.
Although higher nitrogen levels can be used to burn out the Red Thread and disguise it, this does not cure it. Red Thread can still easily appear on well fertilised lawns.
If your lawn care company is repeatedly applying higher levels of nitrogen fertiliser to your lawn, Red Thread will typically be more difficult to remove. With correct greenkeeping skills and practices, your lawn shouldnt require high levels of nitrogen fertiliser at each visit.
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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.
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