Good morning – This morning I woke up to 5-6 “dead spots” on my lawn all around the same area (under a tree). It literally happened overnight. I do have 2 dogs, but they don’t spend any time in the front yard so I ruled out pet damage. The only thing I can think of is either insects or fungus. I attached a picture – would you mind offering some assistance on how to kill and prevent it from happening again? The only thing different I have done with my grass since the weekend is water it. heavily. The last watering was on Monday, for about 3-4 hours starting at 8am. This is actually the only time I have watered it all summer. PH and other nutrients are at good levels and I aerated it in the Spring of 2009. Any ideas? Thank you so much for your help, Robert
Robert, Considering the time of year, the speed of onset and the fact that you recently watered the area heavily, I’d suspect that you have an outbreak of Summer Patch’ which is a fungal disease. Here’s the address to a Purdue University pdf file describing the disease and suggestion on what to do about it. . . . www.ces.purdue.edu/extmedia/BP/BP-115-W.pdf . . . It looks like your watering may have played into the hand of the disease and that’s why it appeared so suddenly after your watering. We have a couple of fungicides ‘Bayer Lawn Disease Control’ and Bonide’s ‘INFUSE’. Both have the same active ingredient ‘propiconazole’. These products can cure many diseases but with summer patch it is suggested that it be used starting in mi-May as a preventitive. In your case I’d start using the Bonide Infuse since it is in a throw away hose-end sprayer. A liquid application will get deeper into the soil and get at the disease at the root level. This should prevent the disease from spreading too much farther. Make sure to start using Infuse as a preventative in next spring May as suggested since you know you have the disease present in your lawn. Peter Bowden