turfgrass

Fungus or Burn???

Fungus or Burn???

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

VooMan – posted 25 August 2003 17:08

Howdy Folks, I need some advice… 🙁

I am on the south side of Atlanta, Georgia and have bermuda grass.

A friend told me I had dollar spot in my lawn some weeks back, so I bought a fungus spray (from Spectracide). It seemed to work okay, but the fungus seemed to come back.

So…

I have tried like crazy to find a feed store that carries corn meal, and finally found a place 30 miles away that has to grind it for me. It will be ready this Friday (August 29th).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch… Chemlawn fertilized my yard last week. They just did it about five weeks ago, and after a major growth spirt it had finally slowed back down to normal. The didn’t even mention fungus in their wonderful little report they gave me along with the bill. They are SO fired once my contract is up!!!

Now, what looked like fungus is all of a sudden looking like drought stress. I’ve had these purple areas in my lawn that seem to be getting worse. It looks purple and straw-like. We haven’t had much rain lately, so as per Dchall’s instructions I watched the purple looking stressed spot for a couple of days. Once it looked stressed in the morning I ran my sprinkler. It perked back up. Now a couple of days later half my yard is looking like straw and purple…

My qestion is, does this sound like the fungus spreading, drought stress, or did Chemlawn burn my lawn? I don’t know what it would look like if it was burnt, so I’m not sure…

Thanks for any advice you may have.

Andrew

seed – posted 27 August 2003 22:32

Andrew, while I cannot make a confident diagnosis from your description, the first and easiest thing to check is the watering. Please check your irrigation system to find out how much water is applied per hour. The cup catchment test (see image at https://turfgrass.com/water/index.html ) can be used. It is possible that your irrigation system has low precipitation rate, that is, it doesn’t put out very much. If so, the duration of watering can be lengthened to apply the appropriate amount. In a hot day, easily 1/3 inch of water may be required per day, so if you water once every 3rd day, you would have to water at least 1 inch.

Phil

VooMan – posted 28 August 2003 09:20

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the reply. I am quite sure at this point that it is the fungus spreading and not drought stress or burn. A couple of nights ago I found a bottle of Spectracide fungus spray I thought I had already used up, so I sprayed as much as I could with that. It already seems to be looking better compared to the rest of that part of the yard… In talking with a couple of my neighbors I have heard that it’s not just me with the fungus. We’ve had a lot more rain than usual here in Atlanta and a lot of people are dealing with it.

As always Phil, I thank you for your reply. Hopefully I’ll get this under control soon. 🙂

Andrew

Leave a Reply

Skip to toolbar