Brown Spots In The Lawn: Fungus And Disease Options

hey what's up y'all I'm Allen hain the lawn care dot thanks for coming back for yet another week Milo is kicking in nice already ain't it so today we're going to talk about lawn diseases can they cause brown spots in the lawn can they cause long-term damage can they kill it should you treat for them or just wait it out and what's the best strategy for treating if you'd like to prevent those diseases and when should you put that down [Music] so in this video I'm gonna give you some basics to consider and a bulletproof strategy for your lawn based on grass type north south east or west I've been working on lawns from Chicago to Tampa since 1997 and I've assembled some basic but relevant strategies that you can employ this weekend using products found at any local box store or delivered next day from Amazon hit that like button let's get into it now before we go getting too crazy with this highly educational video full of fun facts and some spraying and praying as well as a little spread in and reading I have a written resource for you that will fill in the blanks for you and answer quite a few of your questions click the link below and sign up for my free email tips I send out free tips and email every single Tuesday in this coming week I'll be sending out some tips that'll kind of answer questions that come from this video talking about lawn diseases but also included in there we have a bunch of free guides and one of those free guides is a guide to lawn fungus and lawn diseases we talked about some of the different ones that attack different grass types what time of the year what to look for as well as there are a few pictures but the idea is it's an extra resource for you to help you play lawn detective to understand number one are you susceptible disease and number two is if you have brown spots in the lawn could they possibly be caused by a disease or some other problem with the lawn so click the link below and we'll send you that free guide as well as a bunch of others and again you'll get those great email tips every single Tuesday now as I sit right here today in Florida late May heading into June I'm actually in a seasonal transition I'm coming out of a very dry even drought ridden spring into what we call our summer rainy season where we're gonna get rain every single day in the afternoon as clouds build you can see here I was out throwing down a little fertilizer over at the freedom factory over by Terre just a couple to three days ago look at those clouds building in the background there that pretty much happens every afternoon here in Florida during the rainy season now here in Southwest Florida our summer pattern is pretty much kicked in we're getting rain just about every afternoon sometimes in the morning but the other thing that's on the rise is the humidity it's very humid and sticky out here even early in the morning now for those of you across the middle of the country what we kind of generically called the transition zone you guys have had tons and tons of rain but now your heat is on the rise even up through the eastern seaboard lots of rain and now humidity is going up you've had heat waves starting to come through and it's gonna get further and further into summer and the heat is going to continue to come up and be on the rise same thing in the Midwest I was actually watching a millennial farmer video this is one of his hats here he's up in Minnesota way up there over by Darrin Minnesota I can't do a Minnesota accent but I was watching one of his videos recently he's mowing the lawn and he's like in full dandelion bloom right now whereas you know a couple hundred miles south of there you guys were in dandelion bloom in early May by the way if you haven't heard of the millennial farmer you should subscribe to his channel because he hates dandelions as much as we do so you can kind of see that even though the country is a little bit different and how we're coming into our seasonal transition we're all heading into that summer pattern and that's when disease can strike is during seasonal transitions so why do we see disease during seasonal transitions well it goes back to something called the disease triangle as that great philosopher Jimmy Buffett taught us in his song fruitcakes relationships we all got them we all want them what do we do with them well here we go I'll tell you the disease triangle are three points that need to come together in order for fungus to manifest itself into disease in your lawn the first part of the disease triangle is the host you've got to have a host and that's the part that we've all got it's turf grass turf grass is the host it can host the fungus that can manifest and a disease now some hosts are more susceptible than others and sometimes that's dependent on the grass type you have and it's growth habit but other times it's just where you live a good example would be gray or pink snow mold which infests Kentucky bluegrass after winter you're not gonna find gray or pink snow mold in st. Augustine grass because well st. Augustine grass just doesn't grow where it snows now the second leg to the stool or the second point for that disease triangle is the pathogen itself the pathogen has to be present in or on or around the host so some of the more common pathogens that you may have heard of when it comes to turf grass or for example Rhizoctonia solana which is called brown patch when it's in cool season lawns or it's called large patch when you find it in warm season lawns like st. Augustine grass and zoysia there's also PI Rickey Alera gracia which is also called gray leaf spot that infests pretty much all grass types or serra tinea homeo Scarpa which is also called dollar spot speaking of fruitcakes don't those all sound like the names of college fraternities from eighties movies every Halloween the trees are filled with underwear every spring that toilets explode of course I'm talking about Delta you twerp keep in mind pronunciations are suspect I'm doing the best I can over here now for the most part you're not gonna know if the pathogen is actually in on or around your lawn unless you've had problems with it in the past or your neighbors have or someone has told you that they've seen it in the area and the reason it matters if your neighbors have it or if it's in the area is because these pathogens can be carried along the wind they can be carried on shoes they can be carried on equipment animals can track them into your lawn all different ways that these things can spread and that's why it's important for you to understand and get a relationship with your local County Extension Service these are offices that are like extensions of the local land grant University and they're in each county in most cases around the US and their job is to let you know they have actual hours open and blogs and information that they give out for homeowners as well as professionals to let you know what's going on in your area when it comes to things like diseases the Extension agents that staff these offices they're out on lawns in your local area usually weekly sometimes daily again sometimes it's with professionals but a lot of times it's with homeowners but they will know exactly what's going on in real time and so one of the things you should always realize is if you find brown spots in the lawn and you think it could be from disease take pictures call your local County Extension see if they have open hours for you some of them will take emails or read their blogs and see if there's giving alerts to things that are happening in your area right now now the third leg of that stool or the third point of that triangle is actually the environment and this is the one where I talked about that's key to seasonal transition you see because the other two the host and the pathogen they're always going to be in your lawn obviously your host is always there and the pathogen can always be there too but if the environmental factors don't come together in the right way you may never see that disease manifest now the environment needed for the disease to manifest is a little bit different depending on the disease itself I mentioned pink and gray snow mold earlier with Kentucky bluegrass well that forms under cloudy conditions snow cover helps to hold in humidity close to the ground but it's not necessary but the temperature conditions it favors are between 33 degrees Fahrenheit and 60 degrees Fahrenheit whereas Brown patch and large patch that's the Rhizoctonia I mentioned it's more of a later spring early summer disease that favors de temps near 90 with night temps over 60 for sure and raging when the night temps are near 70 one thing most of them have in common though is high humidity now we're not gonna get into terms like a relative humidity here but just know that as humidity is on the rise with nighttime temps on the rise and definitely daytime temps as well just know that that means the environment for disease is really raging and that's a time you should be concerned now one caveat I want to offer here not all lawn diseases need to be treated with fungicide there are some diseases that are a disease of the leaf if it's a disease of the leaf meaning it doesn't really affect the crown of the plant or the roots think of the crown of the plant like the crown of your head remember Jack and Jill went up the hill and Jack fell down and broke his crown well when Jack breaks his crown he's in trouble now the crown is where your hair grows out of as a human then again if you break that that's a bad thing for the grass plant the crown is where the blades grow out of so if the crown gets infected you got a problem and definitely if the roots get infected you have a problem but for diseases of the leaf all you really have to do is push those out with nitrogen more nitrogen grow it out like a bad hair dye job now there are diseases that affect the meaty parts of the plant like I said the crown on the roots and those do need to be treated with fungicides and the one that I'm going to be treating for today large patch Rhizoctonia is one of those diseases I'm also concerned about gray leaf spot which affects the leaves and the Crown's so that's another one that I've seen in my st. Augustine that I'm going to be treating for today when I say treating for I mean putting down preventative measures again I've got a resource for you when you sign up for the email that gives you a lot more in-depth on some of these different ways that these diseases can manifest so make sure you get that but I'll tell you right now if you have Zoysia st. Augustine or centipede warm season grasses or cool season grass across the transition zone turf type tall fescue even up to the east and into the Midwest you definitely want to put down a preventative for that Rhizoctonia a large patch Brown patch as you're coming into seasonal transition which for most of you is right now and 100% for sure I need to because I had Rhizoctonia in my lawn last fall down here in Florida because our growing season is pretty much year-round rise like Tony it hits us in the spring and in fall and even kind of last overwinter depending how far south you are so again if you have those grass types I recommend you use this bulletproof strategy as a prevention and you get it down right away all right now you guys have seen this before the bulletproof strategy I'm gonna give you a couple little extra options that I maybe not have talked about in last year's video just so you guys know I've said this before I'm kind of like an eighth grade teacher that teaches the same exact subject every single year I just try to freshen it up a little bit one way or the other so number one I don't get bored with it but number two so the students get don't get bored with it cuz a lot of you guys keep repeating eighth grade for some pizza oh sorry I didn't mean it that way that was terrible I'm sorry I didn't mean that as a Wow don't thumbs down me okay so the bulletproof strategy what it basically is is it uses two modes of action fungicides so when I say modes of action what I mean are ways that the product or the chemical or the active ingredient works different modes of action are grouped into different well groups and the two that are easiest to get for homeowners are first of all this group 11 you guys have all seen Scotts disease X which interestingly enough is cheaper to buy on Amazon with Prime delivery it's cheaper that way than it is to go to Home Depot and get it I don't know why but hey good job Scott's this is a granular formulation of a group 11 herbicide called azoxystrobin this exact formulation concentration everything about it is exactly the same things that pros use today on the road the only difference is this is a different packaging and you can see here piezo nito is 10 pounds and it treats 5000 square feet well up to and we'll talk about that in a minute and now the second active ingredient this is a group three fungicide this is called propiconazole and you can see this one here is also pedo neato ten pounds and treats up to 5,000 square feet now in this case these are both granular products in the past I had recommended that you use your propyl cano salt and liquid and you can still do that if you like the hose and sprayer option I kind of like the idea of going granular with one and liquid with another but really if you prefer cuz a lot of you guys have told me just prefer to do everything in granular you go granular Scott's a group 11 granular this is a bio advanced no this is sponsored these are just what I find at my local stores here I'll link them also to Amazon so y'all can get them but pro pecan is also granular granular now do not mix these in the hopper together please don't do that you not get a consistent application to separate walks across the lawn I just want to point out I had mentioned I am treating or preventing for here Rhizoctonia which is large patch brown patch it's the same thing it's the same pathogen and that's the big target that I'm looking for today and again if you've got turf type tall fescue or if you have Zoysia centipede or st. Augustine grass I highly recommend you go with this preventative strategy ASAP real quick because some of you like to be like professional you like the professional formulations I'll point out this is pro Poconos all here you can see their group 3 this is uh this is 14.3% Pro picados all this is a very concentrated version and the use of mix that in water and a pump sprayer and then here is Eagle Eagle is not propiconazole Eagle is a different active ingredient but it is also a group 3 fungicide so it's not like applying this one and this one is gonna do much difference it's either over here but if you like Eagle I do like Eagle it's an excellent fungicide this can also be mixed in a pump sprayer and spray but for ease of use today because I really like to talk more about store-bought products what I'm gonna do I'll treat one section as I always do just for purposes of the video here I will treat my entire lawn though but I'm just going to show you the granular options if you want to see me do it with the granular Plus the liquid all linked to last year's video where I did the bullet proof strategy that way one thing we always want to look at I am preventing I do not have active disease spots that I can see so always read the label I'm going with the preventative rate which is 2 pounds per thousand square feet and remember it's a 10 pound bag so at 2 pounds per thousand square feet that's where I'll get the 5000 square feet of coverage here if you were doing a curative you can see the curative rate is 4 pounds per thousand it's double so curative would be if you have active disease in the lawn you double up the rate will go over here to the pro pacano saw and you can see the same thing the preventative rate is 2 pounds per thousand square feet and again that's why this bag here will cover 5000 square feet the scots spreader settings are on every one of these bags here and you can see here Scots deluxe edge guard 2 pound rate is a 4.5 and obviously this is a Scots product so their preventive rate on the broadcast spreader they want you to put it on two and a quarter so there you go so / now except for the spreading in the dreadin let's go and throw down boys let's hope for the best sorry I got a little carried away there I wanted to get out and start run down but I got to just show you the measurements here so I got my property map here and so I'm actually going to be able to get section two over there and section three done with one bag of each because this is two thousand square feet and that over there is twenty five hundred so that's 45 hundred and I'll have just a skosh left over when I'm done now it's time to go on down [Music] some of you had mentioned or asked about my EDC in my last video this is actually a custom that I got from my friends stomping new customs and I'll tell you what you know you're a true lawncare nut when you actually have fertilizer prills or in this case disease control prills stuck up here in your jimping [Music] I always get winded when I apply it's good exercise and I'm old but I want to say this is a very low use rate you can see I'm on you know two and a quarter there and it feels like almost nothing's coming out I'll do a shot where I go straight at it there's not a lot that's getting thrown out the reason I feel this is important to mention is because some of you are throwing down my low and you're throwing that down at 12 pounds per thousand so you can see like buckets of the stuff coming out then you switch to this which it's a light drill that you can't see as well as well as it's only two pounds per thousand so man I'm out of shape so so you're gonna feel like nothing is coming out you're gonna be tempted to crank it up don't do that don't waste the product just go with what the label states again you know you your measurements you know like I should be not quite halfway done because this is 2,000 square feet I can see I'm not quite halfway done I got 2,500 left we'll have a little bit left when it's over again use your common sense use your experience that you've gotten from applying other things but do not make the mistake of equating this to feeling like am i low throw it's not even close it's much much less of a rate [Music] [Music] okay well it's about 45 minutes later wife called me in for some breakfast so and actually you can see I've talked about talked about how the clouds build see them building up there that's the storm clouds starting to build now that's our summer pattern see these now these aren't gonna break they'll keep going across the state but eventually they'll build and they'll fill up over to over the daytime and then we'll get rain in the afternoon we're gonna throw down the group three here now this has a different setting because that tells me the pro size is probably a little bit different and let's see the setting here is a 4.5 for sure look at those these alike grape-nuts so this is the so this here is the Scot stuff that's left over in the corner there and then that's the propyl Kaunas also it's more like Grape Nuts don't eat it kids now just answer a couple final questions the answer is yes you should water these in especially these granulars they need to be watered in so the grass can take them in and work systemically and as far as how often should you retreat well again if you've had problems with the disease in the past you should retreat every 21 to 30 days if you've never really had a problem before but you're just concerned or you've seen it with neighbors you could probably treat twice in the spring and be fine but here in Florida I mean our hot and can our hot and humid conditions they they continue all through the year and I've seen great leaf spot go all summer so you kind of just got to monitor things and keep going but every 21 to 30 days to retreat but again don't get crazy and slather the earth with chemicals I don't want to be known as the chemical nut I'd rather just be known as the lawn care nut so use common sense and be logical in your treatment so there you go guys I hope this video has been helpful to you if it has please hit that like button and consider sharing this video thanks a lot for watching I'm Allen Haney lawn care nut and I'll see you in the lawn [Music]

Channel: The Lawn Care Nut

Views: 128,882

Keywords: lawn brown spots, brown spots in lawn, lawn fungus brown spots, dollar spot, brown patch, large patch, patches in lawn, large patches in lawn, disease in lawn, fungus in lawn, lawn care nut, allyn hane, lawn fungus, lawn disease, brown patch lawn disease

Id: 4X0zp7lMz4I

Length: 18min 51sec (1131 seconds)

Published: Sun May 31 2020