What Causes Brown Patches In My Lawn

Chemical Burns From Fertilizer

Another very common reason your lawn is turning brown in spots is overusing or spilling fertilizer or spilling other chemicals on your lawn.

This results in either a chemical burn or a change in pH in your soil, which will cause your grass in that location to die.

Solution

To avoid these types of chemical burns, it is important to use fertilizer as directed and to dispose of other chemicals properly.

Avoid pouring gasoline into your lawnmower on your lawn and instead, do it in the garage or on your driveway.

Too much nitrogen can specifically cause these kinds of burns, whether the nitrogen comes from spilling fertilizer as you turn your broadcast spreader or from animal urine.

Thats right, dogs or other animals peeing on your lawn also kills grass due to the high nitrogen content in their urine.

Encourage your dog to pee elsewhere in your yard or take them on a walk to avoid urine burns on your lawn.

Common Lawn Diseases And Pests

If youve eliminated all the above causes for brown spots on your lawn, its time to move on to some of the more serious diseases and pests that plague lawn grasses. Some of the most common culprits are:

Thatch: Thatch is a buildup of decaying grass blades that can build up so thick that it chokes out healthy grass.

Remedy:Remove thatch if it is more than a half-inch thick.

Grubs: Grubs are a common problem in mid to late summer, and most easily identified when your sod easily pulls back from the ground like a carpet.

Remedy: Pull back a section of sod and inspect for fat, white curved worms. More than ten per square foot can cause lawn damage. Grub control products are available at your garden center.

Chinch bugs: Chinch bugs are a common summer pest in warm-season lawns, especially in hot sunny patches beside driveways and sidewalks.

Remedy: Inspect your lawn closely, and look at your shoes as you walk through the grass you should be able to spot the small black and white adults. Theyre resistant to many pesticides, but there are products available to target them.

Other insects: Caterpillars and other pests can live part of their life cycle in lawns.

Remedy: Watch your lawn closely look for crawling and munching insects and for grass blades that look eaten. Also watch for birds and wasps feeding on these pests in your lawn.

Prevention And Control Tips

The best defense against Brown Patch and other turfgrass diseases is a healthy, hardy lawn. Weed Mans granular, slow-release fertilizer applied at the right time will strengthen your lawn and help it fight off common stressors. Core aeration will also help. Aeration improves soil drainage, relieves compaction, and reduces thatch .

If brown patch is already present on your lawn, try the following techniques:

• Withhold water from affected areas until the soil dries. Then, practice deep, infrequent watering rather than frequent short periods of watering.

• Water in the mornings ONLY. This will allow the grass and soil to dry before the sun goes down.

• Mow frequently at the highest setting.

• Mow with a razor-sharp blade.

Brown patch can also be controlled with the application of fungicide. To ensure continuous control, fungicides must be applied every 21 to 28 days . Your local Weed Man professional can help you create a disease control program that is right for your lawn.

Dont let your brown lawn make you blue this summer. Effective disease management and the lush, healthy lawn that comes with it are only a phone call away.

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Brown Spots In Grass: Causesidentification And Prevention

Brown spots is a fungal disease caused by the fungus Rhizoctonia that leaves large circular brown patches on lawns. Brown spots attack grass that grows in the fall when the weather is cooling down.There are several reasons your lawn may develop a brown patch, including high heat and humidity, moisture, poor soil damage, excessive nitrogen, too much thatch, and compacted soil.

Grass cutting taking up all your time? Call us, and we will do it for you!

To prevent brown spots you should water your lawn on schedule, mow high, reduce thatch, fertilize properly, and make efforts on maintaining a healthy lawn. You can identify brown spots by observing yellowish-brown irregular circular patches in your lawn, surrounded by a smoke ring border.

Symptoms Of Brown Patch

As its name suggests, Brown Patch presents itself on the lawn in the form of circular, brown patches. These can range in size from a few inches to several feet in diameter. In the early morning dew, strands of a cobwebby fungal growth called mycelium may be evident on the grass blades. The affected grass will discolor and, in severe cases, may die.

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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.

Forgotten Toys Or Tools

Leaving items on your lawn even just for a day or two, but especially for longer periods of time, can create brown spots.

The item on the grass prevents that patch of grass from getting the sunlight, air, and water that it needs to thrive. This can cause a patch of grass to go dormant, such as in a drought situation.

However, if an item is left on the lawn for too long, such as a playset, then the grass underneath will ultimately die.

You can prevent this by picking up toys and tools off of the lawn at the end of each day.

Brown spots from temporary items will recover quickly on their own but spots that were covered for longer periods of time might benefit from using a patch and repair mixture like .

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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 .

A Healthy Lawn In Your Future

How to repair the brown or dead spots in your lawn will depend upon what caused them in the first place. Weve already mentioned some potential repairs depending upon the causes but a lawn care professional can help you determine which steps are right for you in order to get your lawn on its way to better health.

You might also want to consider some healthy practices to keep your lawn in good shapeafter addressing some of its specific concerns. Getting on a regular lawn care program can help promote a healthier lawn and prevent some of these problems from happening in the first place. Thats because a healthy lawn will provide the best possible defense against disease, pests, and environmental stressors.

While some problems are difficult to avoid, the better shape that your lawn is, the better it will perform. Generally, that means reducing and ultimately eliminating brown spots and letting beautiful, green grass fill in. With the right care, your lawn can be on its way to looking its best.

Are you ready to get rid of dead or brown patches in your Allentown, Bethlehem, or Easton, PA lawn? Get in touch with us to get some free expert advice and find out more about our lawn care programs which include three lawn care pricing options to give you the lush lawn youre looking for.

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What Is Causing These Brown Patches In My Yard

It’s true, our lawns aren’t always as green as we want them to be.

You may be treating your lawn perfectly and still experience a brown patch in the lawn.

So what is causing the brown patches of grass?

And what can you do to fix a dead patch of grass?

Well, we did the leg work and reached out to the pros to find out.

Below you will find what they had to say!

Heres How To Help Reduce Lawn Diseases:

• Mow regularly to prevent a build up of thatch and remove clippings from the lawn.

• Water only in the mornings, to allow the lawn to dry off during the day.

• Use a soil wetting agent likeYates Waterwise Soil Wetterto improve water penetration into the soil, so water is less likely to sit on the soil surface.

• Aerate or core your lawn to improve drainage.

• For the control of Lawn diseases , try Yates Mancozeb Plus Garden Fungicide & Miticide.

• Keep your grass well fed with a lawn food that contains a good amount of potassium, such asYates Dynamic Lifter Concentrated Lawn Food. Potassium is a nutrient that helps strengthen the lawn so its better able to resist disease infection. Yates Dynamic Lifter applied during autumn will also promote a lush green lawn as winter approaches and add valuable organic matter back into the soil.

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How To Get Rid Of Brown Patch Pythium Blight & Dollar Spot Fungus

Brown patch, Pythium blight and dollar spot diseases can damage or even kill your lawn. Pythium blight will kill areas of the lawn overnight. Brown patch and dollar spot, dont usually kill large areas of the lawn but they certainly can kill large areas if the disease grows over a long enough period. Because these diseases thrive in warm, humid conditions, its important to treat the active disease with a fungicide that will control future problems. A correct diagnosis is essential because each of the diseases requires a specific fungicide.

When Should I Treat Brown Patch Pythium Or Other Diseases

Does every yard have to be protected from fungus? It really depends upon the level of maintenance and expectations of the lawn. A mid-level lawn without an irrigation system may get some brown patch, and minor damage. If it gets bad enough, those damaged areas could be seeded in fall. You may want to consider treating your lawn disease if you:

• Seeded your yard in the spring. The young seedlings are more susceptible to fungus. Fungicide can protect baby seedlings.
• Have invested a lot in your lawn and love it very much.
• Have in-ground irrigation and water regularly in the summer to maintain good color and appearance.
• Seeded last fall. These lawns are usually thick and dense and the grass has not been through a hot summer phase, so it is typically more susceptible than mature lawns.
• Have a lawn seed that is a variety of Kentucky bluegrass that is notoriously susceptible to dollar spot and summer patch. RYAN Pros recommend using a fungicide until the variety can be switched over to other more resistant species or varieties.

  RYAN Pros are experts at distinguishing one lawn disease from another one of the keys to treating your lawn with the correct type and rate of fungicide.

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Three Most Common Diseases Causing Brown Patches On Lawn

Most of the summer lawn diseases that attack tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass common in Midwest lawns prefer warm/hot and humid weather. The best conditions for brown patch or Pythium disease growth are daytime temperatures between 80 and 95 degrees F, night-time temps around 65 to 70 degrees F, and high humidity. High summer temperatures combined with late afternoon showers every day in late May through July can be a recipe for disaster for lawns.

There are three types of fungal diseases that our RYAN Pros treat most often. Every tall fescue variety is susceptible to these three diseases brown patch, dollar spot and Pythium blight. Learn how to differentiate between them and what you can do to get rid of these lawn diseases in your yard.

1. What Is Brown Patch Disease?

Brown patch disease appears as circular patches in your lawn.

Brown patch is a common lawn disease found in all cool-season grasses in the U.S. caused by a fungus called Rhizoctonia solani. It appears as brownish-yellow, irregular circular patches that range from 6 inches to several feet in diameter. Brown patch begins to grow when temperatures reach 65 degrees F, but it grows fastest when temperatures reach 80 to 85 degrees F and there is high humidity.

The diseased leaves usually remain standing, and close examination shows tan, irregularly-shaped lesions on the leaves with a dark brown border.

2. What Is Pythium Blight Disease?

Pythium blight appears suddenly and can kill your lawn.

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.

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Dead Grass Or Dormant Grass

Grass begins turning brown when its roots are no longer absorbing the necessary nutrients from the soil but this isnt necessarily a concern in fact, its part of grass natural life cycle. Dormancy is comparable to an animal hibernating over the winter when food is scarce, and it can be caused by drought, flooding, too much watering, extreme heat, extreme cold, or poor soil quality.

However, brown grass could also mean dead grass. Its often difficult to tell the difference between dormant grass and dead grass, especially for the casual gardener. There are however some signs to look for:

Whats Causing Brown Spots In My Lawn

Noticing an excess of ugly, dead brown spots on your grass? Visit FitTurf.com to learn what causes these brown spots and how to treat brown spots in your lawn.

Whats Causing Brown Spots in My Lawn?

Cold-weather region inhabitants are used to brown lawns during the dormant months of late winter and early spring. It is quite another thing to notice brown spots in summer when the other areas of the yard are thriving. Identifying what is causing these annoying spots can be half the battle.

What Causes Brown Spots on Lawns?

Brown spots are not unique. In fact, they affect all types of cool-season grasses, including Kentucky bluegrass, rye, fine and tall fescue all common grasses in Metro-Denver and Metro-Detroit areas. These spots can be caused by several factors, including grubs, fungal problems, dog urine and overgrown thatch. Not sure what is bringing on the brown in your yard? Read on or contact Fit Turf to schedule a free consultation.

Brown Spots Caused by Fungus

Could I Have Grubs?

Dog Urine Burns

Overgrown Thatch

Still unsure about what exactly is causing the brown spots in your yard? The experts at Fit Turf can help. Weve seen it all, and we can quickly and easily diagnose your brown spot burdens. Contact us today for an evaluation, and get your yard back on track and on color.

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Why Are There Dead Or Brown Spots In My Lawn Tips For Pennsylvania Homeowners

Brown or dead spots in your lawn can be a huge source of frustration. Theyre not only a terrible eyesore but may make you feel as though youre losing control of your property.

Depending on the cause, brown or dying spots on your lawn can spread quickly, making your entire lawn look its worst in little to no time at all. Suddenly, your yard is looking like one of the most poorly-maintained properties on the block.You may be wanting to take control of the situation, but you may not be sure how. You ought to be able to have a nice lawn year round, but you may not be sure whats wrong with it or how to go about fixing it. Thats why you want to know what you can do about dead spots in the lawn before they get any worse.