St. Agustine Grass, Fungus

Charles – posted 13 November 2002 10:42

I recently planted St. Agustine Grass about three months ago. About three weeks ago, a round pactch of yellow tips in the outer section appeared. There are now worms or bugs. I was told that it was a fungus of some sort. Home depot sells granules that evidently will take care of this problem. Is anyone familiar with this situation that can give me advise?

George777 – posted 13 November 2002 18:52

charles, you need to find out what the insects are. Call your local county extension office and have someone come out and look at it for you. If you treat for a fungus and you have insects you will not cure your problem. A few weeks ago I had 2 clients with st. aug and they both had pythium root rot. Both turned on the irrigation system after I shut it off.

What are your cultural practices?irrigationfertilizationmowing frequencysoil Ph

St. Aug needs to be on a spray program for chinch bugs.

Douglas_Miami – posted 29 August 2003 14:11

Turfmaster – your site has referenced county extension offices several times in different posts. What are these or who is this office?I live in Miami – should I have a public agency that will identify problems?

Thanks.

certified-in-florida – posted 28 September 2003 17:35

Hey Douglas-Miami,

The extension service for you will be listed as University of Florida Extension Service. It should be in the white pages of your phone book under county listing.

Dchall_San_Antonio – posted 01 October 2003 12:33

Charles said,There are now worms or bugs.

I think he meant there are NO worms or bugs.

You have fairy rings. Round circles of fungus. Sometimes they kill the grass inside completely. Sometimes they only grow a ring of mushrooms and everything else is normal. If you are losing the grass inside, you can use ordinary corn meal to kill the disease. If you only want to use it inside the spot, use 2 pounds of corn meal for every 100 square feet. In 3 weeks it should start to regrow dark green grass in there. I usually suggest that you use corn meal over the entire lawn at 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet as a fertilizer or else you will have dark green spots where your fungus was.

If you use the chemical fungicide first, the corn meal will not work. It relies on healthy beneficial fungi in the soil to work, so if you kill them with fungicide, corn meal will only fertilize.

rcepeda – posted 14 March 2004 12:31

I had the same problem on my grass and got the fungicide granules at home-depot. It worked great and the problem never came back.

Dchall_San_Antonio – posted 15 March 2004 09:57

quote:Originally posted by rcepeda:I had the same problem on my grass and got the fungicide granules at home-depot. It worked great and the problem never came back.

“The fungicide granules?” Which ones? They have many different ones. That is one of my basic problems with chemical fungicides. There are too many to choose from and they are way too expensive. Corn meal is cheap and works every time. Plus it fertilizes.

Jacob942 – posted 25 March 2004 19:49

While I still use organic fertilizers and other organic products, when it comes to brown patch and other fungus, I have sworn off the cornmeal. It didn’t work for me, maybe it will for you.

Daconil works well as does turfcide. Part of your problem may also be the variety of St Augustine. Raleigh St Augustine is the least expensive but also the most prone to fungus problems. Plant ANY of the other varieties that are recommended for your area.

Jacob

Bruce – posted 31 July 2004 14:33

quote:Originally posted by Dchall_San_Antonio:[Corn meal is cheap and works every time. Plus it fertilizes. [/B]

I live in Budapest, Hungary. Am fairly certain my lawn has a fungus. Starts as small brown spots here and there. Often the blades of grass in the brown spots are tinged with red. Had fertilized in late May and then we had almost a month of rain. Spots began appearing shortly after.

No one here knows what to do or even what it is. There are no fungicides for grass. There are fungicides for fruit trees and vegetables. Don’t know what the main chemical is, but it isn’t chlorothalonil.

Tell me more about corn meal as that may be all I can get. How does it work? Why does it work. Is it safe, i.e. can one use too much or too often and hence do more damage? What kind of corn meal? Can I use the kind that one uses for cooking (maybe all I can get)?

Can one use a fungicide that is used for fruits and vegetables? I can find out what the ingredient is next week.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. My once beautiful lawn is turning brown quite rapidly. English please, no Hungarian :-).

Bruce

Dchall_San_Antonio – posted 03 September 2004 13:13

I’ll go over this for Bruce in Hungary.

Corn meal works like this. There is another fungus that is either attracted to or comes in a natural progression, from corn meal out in nature. That fungis is Trichoderma. Trichoderma likes to eat the cell wall structure of other fungi. When the diseased cells lose their structure, they die.

Any kind of whole ground corn works.

Another solution for fungus disease I know you have easy access to is milk. Three ounces of milk in a gallon of water and sprayed on should kill the fungus. The method of last resort is baking soda. Baking soda is a non selective fungicide. If you try this first, the corn meal will not work. Three ounces of baking soda per gallon of water will kill all fungal spores and eventually all the fungi. It is a good idea if you use baking soda, to plan to replenish the fungus with a good compost or, if you’re in Hungary, well rotted animal manure with plenty of tree leaves mixed in.

Catherine – posted 27 September 2004 18:34

I’m interested in the cornmeal solution. How is that applied? Dry and directly or in water?

Also, I live in Hawaii and a portion of my St. Augustine is damp frequently. Any fungus prevention ideas that are not chemical?

Thanks!

jeff14 – posted 12 October 2004 17:00

Dchall,

We too live in the San Antonio area. We believe we have these “fairy circles” that you are speaking of in our St. Augustine lawn.

We applied some corn meal yesterday, but not heavy enough based on your recommendations.

Do you know where we can buy this in large quantities? We have about 13,000 sf of lawn.

We applied greensand and Texas Tee on separate occasions within the last 2 months.

Do you ever perform on-site consulting for a fee? We live in Fair Oaks Ranch, which is just about 8 minutes north of Fiesta Texas. We would feel a whole lot more comfortable if someone such as yourself physically saw the lawn and made recommendations.

Thanks,

Jeff

jostendo_katy_tx – posted 25 October 2004 03:28

For Dchall,

I just moved to Katy, Tx and have a new home built on totally “raped” (from construction) black gumbo clay. The newly laid St. Augustine sod is heavily infected with brown patch fungus.

I have treated with corn meal and “compost tea” and am awaiting the results. But I have some comments and a question:

1) The best way to buy corn meal is from a feed store (50 lb. bags for about $7.00)- however it has often been laying around for a while. Now the resultant weavils are yucky, but no big deal. What IS a problem for me, is the mold and bacteria. On my first application, I was hit with ORGANIC DUST TOXICITY SYNDROME pretty hard. I wore a mask for a second application (to finish off the bags) and am waiting to see what happens.

I never see this issue addressed, and I think people need to be made aware. It isn’t fatal, but fairly uncomfortable (like having the flu).

2) I put handfuls of corn meal around my newly planted shrubs as well. Within two days I had a thick, white fibrous growth forming directly on the corn meal, which I assume is beneficial fungi (thanks to the compost tea). But I can’t find anything on the Internet to verify. Do you know?

Thanks!

Trying to stay organic under the harshest of conditions…..

mikemaas00 – posted 17 December 2004 10:37

These fairy rings being talked about is probably just brown patch. Make sure you use a contact fungicide and not a systemic fungicide. Compass is a good product that is both contact and systemic and is sprayable. If you would rather spread a granular product, use Revere. Shut off your water and do not fertilize. It may start up again in the spring.

ted – posted 17 December 2004 13:02

the soils you mentioned are native to the area, but i’m sure your construction process didn’t help things. agree on the cutback of nitrogen and water going into fungus season on the brown patch-start cutting back in august. the only chemical treatment that works in this market is Prostar used as preventative only. forget the corn meal.

sylvia – posted 12 October 2005 09:46

My grass is turning brown really quickly. When I look closely the roots are all rotten, I also find what I believe to be a fungus. They are about the shape and size of sesame seeds. Theyt vary from bright green to yellowish brown. Thousands of these close to the roots. Not visible from the top. I have also found a couple of very little very green caterpillars. Nobody seems to know what I am talking about. Does this sound familiar to anyone. It had been raining a lot so this might have something to do with it. Please help, I’m desperate and have no idea how to go about fixing this problem. Thanks