Fungus?

kcscott – posted 03 May 2004 15:04

Hi guys

Ive got several spots of “dead” grass in my lawn. They are somewhat circular in shape, but some area’s are just randomly shaped clumps of dead areas. I live in Missouri, and have(I think)a tall fescue mix.Is this fungus related? Or an organic imbalance in the lawn? The grass around these areas appears to be healthy, and thriving.

Im ready to try out DChall’s cornmeal suggestion, I figure why not? From what I understand my other alternative would be to summon Chemlawn to my house. I just used Scotts Weed and Feed (step 2 in the Scotts program I believe) about 2 weeks ago. Will I do any harm to speading cornmeal on the lawn? Is cornmeal safe on new grass?

ted – posted 03 May 2004 16:07

i don’t think you’re dealing with fungus yet, provided that you have tall fescue. your fungicide of choice would be prostar. forget the corn meal- back off on watering, and fertilizing during the next month or so.

kcscott – posted 03 May 2004 17:29

thanks ted! I’ll give it a month or so and see what happens.

ted – posted 03 May 2004 18:09

fungicides work best as a preventative measure- if you have tall fescue, then it takes 3 nights of 70 or above low temps to start the brown patch fungus. fungicide aps before this happens will minimize the damage- you can also cut off sprinkler systems prior to this and make sure you’re mowing tall and cutting the nitrogen off to the grass plants. tall fescue is different from other grass plants in that it doesn’t have a “spine” on the grass blade- it’s just flat across- that should help with the id or if you want, post pics online.

kcscott – posted 04 May 2004 06:54

My grass appears much as you describe it. There are a few small spots where the grass is slightly different in appearance. Im guessing thats normal.

I’ll try and post some pics of the dead spots…it seems that I had problems in the same spots last year. Mostly green healthy grass, with a few areas of yellow patches. Thatch problem perhaps?

ted – posted 04 May 2004 21:47

thatch is rarely a problem on tall fescue.