Burmuda “funk” in Atlanta

Dennis – posted 11 June 2004 05:50

About a week ago, we started noticing dark gray and black oily spots appearing on a section of our bermuda-grass lawn. The spots turn off-white about mid day, as the sun dries them out. The weather here in Atlanta has been warm (mid 80s) and humid, although we haven’t had an unusual amount of rain.

The spots appear to spread nightly, and new patches will show up yards away from the others, and are nearing the neighbor’s year.

A lawn service guy told us it was “dollar spot”, but after doing some online research, I am dubious. Does anyone have a clue what this is, or how to get rid of it?

I have linked to some pictures:

http://www.adotout.com/~dopacki/blight/IMG_1166.jpghttp://www.adotout.com/~dopacki/blight/IMG_1167.jpghttp://www.adotout.com/~dopacki/blight/IMG_1168.jpghttp://www.adotout.com/~dopacki/blight/IMG_1169.jpg

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

-Dennis

cohiba – posted 11 June 2004 20:57

Dennis, Great pics, How many mega pixels is that camera? Anyway it looks to me like Slime Mold. The goodnews is there is nothing to do. It just looks ugly, doesn’t do anything harmful to the turf. So put the sprayer away and enjoy a little nature.

Take care………

Dennis – posted 12 June 2004 06:01

Thanks for the reply. The camera is a Canon Digital Rebel SLR, with 6.3MP. I reduced the images to 1024×768, as right out of the camera they are around 4 megabytes.

So on the slime mold, is it normal for it to spread so aggressively? I did a bit more research on line, and found something similar called “pythium blight”, also called “grease spot”. Either way, it is nasty stuff.

We somewhat suspect Truegreen Chemlawn tracked it in on their feet or spray hose, as we appear to have the only case in the neighborhood, and it showed up shortly after they did.

-Dennis

ted – posted 12 June 2004 13:41

i’m glad cohiba can see the images, i can’t. better go ahead and have someone spray it just in case. the deal about tgcl tracking in the fungus is probably incorrect, everything always happens after the lawn guys come in, right? i was in atlanta last week- didn’t see any widespread signs of fungus on bermuda. how much are you watering? need detailed amounts, times of day, etc. you should listen to cohiba, he’s a golf guy, and usually dead on correct.

Dennis – posted 13 June 2004 05:52

Hah! You are probably right about everything always happening after the lawn guy comes. It doesn’t really matter how/where we got it anyways

Our watering plan is:

Saturday: 6AM – Ten minutes all zones 7AM – Ten minutes all zonesMonday: 6AM – Ten minutes all zones 7AM – Ten minutes all zonesWednesday: 6AM – Ten minutes all zones 7AM – Ten minutes all zones

We started with a single ten-minute cycle on each watering day, but the would get fairly dry. Going to twenty minutes didn’t seem to allow the ground to absorb all the water, so we compromised on two cycles, with a 50 minute break between them. I suspect two days a week would probably be enough, but my wife disagrees. She won.

I am sure Cohiba is right, the link below almost exactly describes what we are seeing:

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/3000/3074.html

I appreciate all the help very much.

Thanks,

-Dennis

cohiba – posted 13 June 2004 13:25

Dennis,FYI on pythium blight: usually found in lower spots(poor drainage areas), under down spouts, anywhere water would collect and air movement is limited. It produces large amounts of mycelium. Looks like cotton balls or a large mat of cotton laying on the ground. Will track on shoes, hoses, mowers ect. It is encouraged greatly by over fertilization. Nasty stuff and will probably arrive with the lawn man…..

Good Luck…..

ted – posted 13 June 2004 15:06

yeah, you’re problem is the watering. you’re watering way too lightly and too often. you will encourage shallow roots and disease doing this. also – do a soil test- i’m sure tgcl has not performed this.

Dennis – posted 13 June 2004 16:08

Thanks, Ted. I’ll try the soil test. What would be a more reasonable watering schedule, given that we are on a hill, and our soil is almost entirely Georgia-red clay? Watering for longer periods seemed to just result in most of the water running off our yard into the street before it absorbed into the soil.

Thanks again,

-Dennis