Dark Green Circles in Grass

sad grass lady – posted 23 July 2002 18:58

This is the third year for approx 2 1/2 acres of turf type fescue in Columbus, Ohio. We had Scotts fertilizing our grass until this year in which we decided to do it ourselves and have applied both the crabgrass and weed and feed using Lesco products. Our neighbors on both sides have dark rings in their grass with no dead grass in the middle (both last year and this year) and I now have two of these growing in my beautiful grass and am just sick. Our neighbors do not fertilize their grass. Please help!!!!!

Artemis – posted 11 August 2002 08:58

Unless I miss my guess, you are now faced with Faerie Rings. This fungus causes dark green circles where it is breaking down the nutrients in the soil, resulting in lush growth of the grass immediately over the area of the most current fungus growth. If I am not mistaken, the area immediately behind the green appears to be dead or dying. Which is due to the fact that all the nutrients have been ripped from the ground by the fungus and the rapid grass growth.

Each ring that you see is one single fungus plant and some of these rings can become enormous. Rings 20 and 30 feet across are not unheard of.

Sadly, this fungus is not easy to control. There are a tremendous number of home remedies that have varying degrees of effectiveness. I have heard of everything from pooring bleach on them (Not recommended) to using an Ivory soap solution (uncertain on that one). There are products available that will kill it, but they are by no means cheap.

About the only thing I have seen that works 95% of the time is simply digging the thing out. To do that, you have to dig out the lush growth of lawn PLUS four inches to either side of it. Fill in the hole with soil and reseed or lay sod to cover the bare spot created by the mushrooms removal.

The only other solution would be to just let it continue its life cycle… eventually, the thing will get so big, it will no longer be in your yard. But only if you have about 20 years to wait. Good luck to you.

(P.S. The whole reason I popped into this site was on the hope of finding a home remedy that IS effective. Doesn’t look like I will be having much luck. LOL!)

Dchall_San_Antonio – posted 30 June 2003 14:24

In case anyone missed the answer to this on another message, I’ll repeat it here.

Of course fairy rings are caused by fungus, hence the mushroom circles. Sometimes the mushrooms don’t grow but the grass will die in a perfect circle. Sometimes you will see lots of circles ranging from 6 inches in diameter to 50 feet in diameter.

The cure for all (yes, all!) fungus disease in turf is whole ground corn meal. This is the same corn meal found at the grocery store. I get mine at the feed store in a brown bag labeled, “feed.” For $5-$6 you can get 50 pounds at the feed store. The application rate for prevention and fertilization (it is also a great organic fertilizer) is 10 pounds per 1,000 square feet ($0.0011 per square foot). The application rate for existing fungal disease is 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet ($0.0022 per square foot). Don’t let the feed store folks get you confused with corn gluten meal. They are two different products. You want corn meal, chops, or any whole corn kernel that is ground up. If you try whole corn seeds like some animal feed, you will end up with a field of corn. It must be ground.

The Texas A&M University at Stephenville has found that ground corn meal works like a fungicide because it attracts a member of the Trichoderma (try-ko-DER-mah) fungus family. Trichoderma acts like a disease to the disease-causing fungus and kills it in about 3 weeks. If I remember right, the Trichoderma attacks the cell walls of the other fungus.

In peanut fields, corn meal works as well as crop rotation for eradication of many different fungi diseases. This means that peanut farmers no longer need to spray fungicides nor do they need to rotate their peanut fields out of the prime cash crop.

The same fungi that attack peanuts also attack turf

Joey – posted 08 September 2005 17:04

EUREKA! I FOUND IT!

Turfmiester – posted 10 September 2005 03:42

You can make a big cake of cornbread with 20 lbs. of cornmeal!!!! Get hold to some Prostar- 6 oz/1000 sq.ft. , mix with Aqua-Gro, a soil wetting agent, 8 oz/1000 sq. ft. This should do the trick.

cohiba – posted 10 September 2005 13:46

The Prostar works great. But I found that you should aerate the area first, then do a soil drench with the Prostar. It didn’t come back for me.

Prostar beats cornmeal like a ragdoll!!!!

Superstar – posted 12 September 2005 06:47

Cohiba

have you actually tried side by side experiment using both corn meal and prostar?

cohiba – posted 12 September 2005 11:41

I would not think of trying cornmeal on the turf at work. I would lose my job. I need at least 98% efficasy.

However, I did tryout someones advise last year on my home lawn. I used 20# per thousand sq.ft in April, May, and June. On my Bluegrass/fescue/poa lawn at home. The biggest mess I ever had. The wind was calm but that stuff found a breeze and took off. Had to throw out my sneakers because the stuff got wet and made shoecakes. The result: I had the biggest, greenest crabgrass plants on the block! No disease all season long because the crabgrass choked out the lawn. Notice how crabgrass and goosegrass don’t get disease?

That is why I have a problem with the cure-all cornmeal. It MAY work in your situation and for that I am happy for you. In my situation, had I tried it at work, I would have lost my job. I cannot, and will not, advocate cornmeal for anything more than an organic amendment to feed the soil microbes. You can also use old soda, mollassas, stale beer, cake mix, sawdust, bird droppings, and alot of other stuff if you can get it in quantity.

Cornmeal is a good, cheap organic source. It is not a fungicide, insecticide, or herbicide. The only thing I killed with cornmeal was a spider when I dropped the bag on the floor of my garage…………..

Thanks for asking though………….

QWERTY – posted 13 September 2005 07:46

That’s a lot of cornmeal. Every 3 months is plenty. Ive never had problems applying cornmeal. I guess you have bad luck with it. I apply them on dry grass by hand then I water them in. Easy enough. It does get bit messy on windy days but that’s part of lawn care anyway.

Corn meal does work very well. Many people have success using it as preventative or cure for fungus damages. If you want to destroy benefical fungus, go right ahead and do it. It’s your lawn and customers lawn. They are seriously lacking enough trichodermal fungi that are needed to fight harmful fungus.

theduke – posted 26 October 2005 11:58

I’ve been using cornmeal on what I believe is fairy ring. What is Prostar?? I have a St. Augstine lawn just planted in June with bright green lush circles in some areas and thinning yellow grass in others while other areas look normal. I have used cornmeal several times on these areas for the last several weeks and tried Garlic GP once. Any other suggestions?

UpNorth – posted 26 October 2005 17:56

Unless there are mushrooms, it’s not fairy ring…try IMMUNOX as it sounds like it is Brown Patch.

[This message has been edited by UpNorth (edited 26 October 2005).]

gabe – posted 27 October 2005 09:19

upnorth,

that’s not true.fairy rings are typically sorted into 3 categories, based primarily on the effect the disease has on the turf.

type I: kills grass in a ringtype II: produces a stimulated/taller green ringtype III: has no effect on the existing turf, and are only noticed when mushrooms pop up.

mushrooms or toadstools or whathaveyou may be associated with any/all of them, depending on a myriad of factors, but are not required for it to be a “fairy ring”.

and theduke,

prostar is a fungicide (flutolanil) that is often effective in suppressing fairy ring development.

cohiba – posted 27 October 2005 13:55

Gabe is totally right. Kudos, I agree.As for the fairy ring: I have used Prostar as a soil drench after aeration, with wonderful results. The key to it is to break up the ring. BTW: some fairy rings are documented to be hundreds of years old and encompass acres of fields.

Corn meal will only mask the symptoms. it will not cure it.

Good work gabe!!!