Fight Back Against Fungal Lawn Disease
Majestic Lawn and Landscape Proudly Serving Rockland County, NY & Bergen County, NJ
Fungus happens. It lives in your New York or New Jersey soil and there’s no way to eradicate it. And you don’t want to either—you just want to stop it before it destroys your lawn.
Snow Molds
Now that the snow has melted and your lawn is starting to green up, you may have noticed bleached patches throughout your lawn—in particular where you piled up the snow this past winter. It’s probably gray snow mold. If it has a pinkish tint, it’s pink snow mold.
While all types of fungi spores naturally live in the soil, they don’t show up unless they have the right conditions to grow. At Majestic Lawn and Landscape, we suggest that you cut back on fertilizer and irrigation to give the grass time to grow. The disease will leave once the moist conditions abate.
“I suggest customers just let the fungal disease run its course and reseed when it’s time. Fungicide is very expensive. Unless we put it down preventatively or catch it immediately, it’s not really worth the investment,” says Joe Holland, owner of Majestic Lawn and Landscape.
Summer is Prime Fungal Season
Long, humid days, with or without a lot of rain, as well as a lack of sunshine sets the stage for a plethora of fungal diseases to come out of the soil. Conversely, your yard can also get fungal diseases caused by drought stress. Here is a partial list of fungal diseases that your lawn can get during long periods of humid conditions or dry spells:
- Dollar spot
- Fairy ring
- Leaf spots
- Necrotic ring spot
- Summer patch
- Pythium
- Brown Patch
- Powdery mildew
- Red thread
- Rust diseases.
What can you do to prevent these fungal diseases from cropping up this summer?
Conventional and Organic Turf Management
At Majestic Lawn and Landscape, we offer our organic turf management services to prevent lawn diseases. Our turf management works for both conventional and organic lawns. Here’s how we can help you get a handle on your lawn’s fungal disease:
- We’ll diagnose your lawn with the correct fungal disease. We may perform a soil test to see what your lawn’s pH level is and adjust it to stop fungal growth.
- Develop a lawn maintenance plan to get your lawn back to health. It starts from the soil’s health upward to the grass.
- We’ll cut back on any fertilization services since nitrogen encourages fungal growth.
- We’ll apply an organic or conventional compost to your lawn to encourage beneficial fungal spore growth.
- We’ll encourage you to cut back on irrigating your lawn since too much water helps fungi to spread.
- We’ll mow your lawn with sharp, clean blades to avoid grass plant injury and infection.
- We’ll encourage you to maintain good lawn care habits between our visits to your property.
Does your Rockland County, NY or Bergen County, NJ lawn have bleached patches or looks like it’s coated in rust? Then call us today at (845) 708-2988 or fill out our contact form.
Sources:
Penn State Center for Turfgrass Sciences, “Managing Turfgrass Diseases.”
Osborne, Chip, “Fungal Disease of Turf,” pdf.