Judi’s Professional Lawn Care
Making Neighborhoods Beautiful One Yard at a Time!
7762 Wall Triana Hwy, Unit 22
Harvest, AL 35749
(256) 562-1116
(256) 562-1119 FAX
FACTS ABOUT FUNGUS
First of all what is Fungus? What causes it and how can we get rid of it? It is a disease that can form on plants,
bushes, small trees and grass blades if they stay wet for long periods of time during hot weather. The first sign you
will see suggesting a problem is a brown area or several brown areas developing in your lawn. The next step is
diagnosis. In summertime, brown areas can be from heat stress, lack of water during dry periods, fungus or grubs.
It is important to diagnose the problem so the first thing you should do is call us so we can find out what is causing
the brown areas. Then we’ll know what needs to be done to correct the problem.
If it is very hot, (temperatures over 90 for sustained periods of time), the grass will start to suffer from heat
stress. Fescue will frequently begin to die out. Because Fescue is a cool temperature grass, any temperatures over
80 are stressful and continued days over 90 are deadly. Many folks think watering the Fescue frequently will prevent
loss but let me explain why it doesn’t. Imagine yourself being outside all day, every day in 95 degrees weather. In
just a very short time you will be wilting from the heat. If someone offers you a bottle of nice cold water, you will
feel better for a short time, but before long, you’ll begin to wilt again. That’s the way it is for Fescue lawns. Watering
is great – very important – but it won’t prevent the temperatures from causing damage. Bermuda and Zoysia lawns
love the warm temperatures but even these lawns will suffer from some heat stress if the temperatures are very high
for sustained periods of time, and particularly if they are not getting enough water.
You know how important it is for the human body to have adequate amounts of water. In fact, we can live much
longer without food than we can without water. If we become dehydrated, the body starts to break down. Well, it’s
also important that your lawn receives enough water to stay healthy and that the water comes at the right time of
the day. Healthy grass needs at least one inch of water every week. If there is no rain and if you do not or cannot
water manually, the grass will begin to turn brown and will probably begin to go dormant. If our analysis finds the
grass is suffering from lack of water, we’ll advise you to increase watering times to 2 – 3 times per week for 30-45
minutes at a time.
The third thing our technician will want to check for when brown areas appear (besides heat stress or lack of
water) will be grub damage. During the last part of summer, the Japanese Beetle eggs will begin to hatch. If you
have had the grub prevention product applied, the grubs will die as soon as they leave the egg. However, if you
have not had it, the grubs will begin to feed on the root system of the grass. The beetles lay over 100 eggs each day
during the mating season and that means you could have thousands of tiny grubs feeding. As they devour the roots,
a brown area (or many brown areas) develops. The grubs grow rapidly and expand their feeding area – literally
destroying the root system of your lawn. The technician will reach down and pull on the brown grass. If it is grub
damage, the grass usually pulls up very easily because the roots are gone or very thin. The technician will also dig
into various areas looking for the grub worms. If only a few grubs are found, there is probably not a serious problem
but if there are many found, the lawn needs to have a grub application applied as soon as possible to the entire lawn.
Finally, the fourth possibility for brown areas in the lawn is that there may be a fungus present on your grass.
This fungus can develop slowly or can literally show up overnight. I may talk to a customer on Wednesday of a
week who had her lawn serviced only two days ago. The lawn was totally green on Monday. Tuesday afternoon she
notices a round, brown area. By Wednesday morning, there were several brown areas. That’s how quickly it can
develop. What causes it to develop? Here’s how! You know how the bathroom area in your home is very susceptible
to mildew because it stays hot and humid after you shower - perfect conditions for mildew spores to begin to grow.
Lawn fungus develops in the same way. If the nights are hot and humid and the grass blades stay damp for hours,
the conditions are perfect for fungus spores to develop. This frequently happens if we have late afternoon or evening
showers.
If you water your lawn in the morning (before dawn), the water seeps deep into the soil where the roots are
waiting to suck it up. When the sun comes up, the grass blades dry off before fungus can develop. So early morning
watering is great! But you can’t control Mother Nature and summer rains frequently come in late afternoon or early
evening. That means the grass stays wet for hours and there is a strong chance that a fungus will develop. Now, that
doesn’t mean it will happen in every yard or every time, but conditions are ripe for it to happen. Fescue lawns
develop fungus more frequently than Bermuda or Zoysia. I don’t know why – I’m just saying! Healthy lawns are
less likely to develop Fungus but it still happens sometimes. There’s just no predicting when or why, so we just
encourage you to recognize that brown areas developing may mean you have a serious problem, so call or email
just to let us check it out for you.
Fungus is not only unattractive, but a fungus can be very damaging to the grass. Some fungi are damaging to
just the blades but others attack the root system as well. If the fungus is Dollar Spot or a similar fungus that affects
only the blade, we can generally treat it by apply extra fertilizer to spur rapid growth so that the damaged blades
can just be mowed away. We recommend spraying the wheels and blades of the mower with a bleach and water
solution after each mow to avoid spreading the fungus during the next mow. You can use something like Clorox
Clean-up or mix your own solution of about one part bleach to four parts water. If the Dollar Spot spreads or the
fungus is one like Brown Patch that actually damages the roots, then you will need to have a fungicide applied to
stop the fungus. Once the fungus is ‘stopped’, it will still take some time for the grass to grow out the damaged
blades. Because of this, it may take several weeks for the lawn to return to its healthy green color. In the meantime,
keep spraying the wheels and blades and water frequently – in the early morning. If the fungus spreads more or
doesn’t begin to clear up in a couple of weeks, then we may need to treat it again. At all times please remember, we
care about your lawn and we never charge for inspections, so feel free to call us any time you suspect there is a
problem.