Brown Patch or Dormant Grass?

Kentucky bluegrass, Fescue, Rye and Bent, etc
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TaekwonV

Brown Patch or Dormant Grass?

Post by TaekwonV » June 24th, 2016, 8:31 am

I need help diagnosing my lawn problems. Is this brown patch disease, dead or dormant grass? I live in Northern VA, zone 7. I've uploaded a few pictures. The first one is from May 23rd. The rest are from last week.


Some additional facts

- I do not have a sprinkler system. I've rarely watered the lawn this year due to the amount of rain we've gotten.

- I first noticed the lawn getting brown around June 14th, immediately after we had an extremely hot weekend. Temps in the 95's.

- 3 days prior to that hot weekend, I sprayed Bayer Advanced Insect Killer on front lawn. Temperature that day was low 80's. We had a light rain the day after I sprayed, before the hot weekend occurred.

- I applied 40 lbs of cornmeal on my front lawn 2nd week of May due to some red thread fungus forming.

- I applied Milogranite around the same time as corn meal after reading that red thread was due to nitrogen deficiencies.

- 2nd application of Milogranite (half recommended dosage) on May 31st.



I would appreciate any advice from the experts on this forum. I'm hoping the grass is still salvageable and want to avoid seeding again this year if possible. When I pull hard on the brown grass right now it does not come out easily. If it is indeed brown patch, is there any thing I can do right now to treat it? I will update with more pictures later on, thank you.

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Last edited by TaekwonV on June 24th, 2016, 11:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
nclawnguy
Posts: 2808
Joined: July 12th, 2011, 8:53 am
Location: Piedmont Region of NC
Grass Type: tttf
Lawn Size: 20000-1 acre
Level: Advanced

Re: Brown Patch or Dormant Grass?

Post by nclawnguy » June 24th, 2016, 9:25 am

If it was brown patch, it is past the lesion stage, so cannot confirm that. With brown patch you will notice lesions in the early stage that look like this...
Image
Since you have not watered, it is likely that you are seeing drought stress. There could have been disease as well, but hard to diagnose now.

User avatar
McLovin
Posts: 687
Joined: February 25th, 2009, 12:40 pm
Location: Middle Tennessee
Grass Type: TTTF
Lawn Size: 20000-1 acre
Level: Novice

Re: Brown Patch or Dormant Grass?

Post by McLovin » June 24th, 2016, 9:31 am

Looks like a BP lesion on the blade in the 4th picture/upper center

TaekwonV

Re: Brown Patch or Dormant Grass?

Post by TaekwonV » June 24th, 2016, 11:48 am

Someone on another forum recommended I buy Headway G. Would you guys spend the $$ based on the above pics? Can provide more pictures if you guys need, or close up ones.

Image

TaekwonV

Re: Brown Patch or Dormant Grass?

Post by TaekwonV » June 24th, 2016, 11:54 am

The white granules are corn meal that I put down yesterday. Probably wishful thinking at this point.


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bernstem
Posts: 4232
Joined: April 15th, 2011, 2:59 pm
Location: St. Louis, MO
Grass Type: Front: Solar Eclipse/Award/Bewitched/Moonlight SLT/Prosperity Back: Solar Eclipse Monostand + Bewitched (shade)
Lawn Size: Not Specified
Level: Not Specified

Re: Brown Patch or Dormant Grass?

Post by bernstem » June 25th, 2016, 12:38 pm

Headway will kill just about everything. It has both a DMI (Propiconazole) and QoI fungicide (Azoxystrobin). You will pay for the long list of diseases covered. I would lean towards Brown Patch, but am terrible at disease ID based on internet pictures. There is one lesion that looks like it, but close inspection should find more at the borders of the patches.

Another fungicide option that isn't as pricey is Eagle (Myclobutanil) which is a DMI fungicide. Bayer also sells a fungicide in the big box store with the active ingredient Propiconazole. Both those will cover Brown Patch, but maybe not as well as the QoI fungicides according to Turffiles. Lastly, Syngenta (which makes Headway) sells a Propiconazole product under the brand name Banner Maxx.

I would say your best option is Heritage or Headway. If you don't want to wait for shipping, you can do one application of Propiconazole (buy at a big box) now and follow-up with a QoI in 2 weeks. Alternating fungicides is also good practice as you generally shouldn't do more than 2 consecutive applications of the same fungicide to prevent resistance, though the specific rotations vary by product. How to rotate applications is usually on the label.

As a final thought, most diseases will not wipe out the entire stand of turf. You can weather the damage and overseed in the fall with more disease resistant cultivars. That eliminates/reduces the need for fungicides in future years. I would also put some serious consideration to non chemical prevention in future years. There are biological fungicides such as Serenade and Companion that are bacterial based. They work best as preventive measures and are not great at cure so you need to start them proactively before you get a disease. You also need to consider cultural practices when it comes to prevention. Appropriate watering, mowing and fertilization are critical. In regards to watering, there is a tendency on the site to push the watering interval as far apart as possible. That is good at reducing water usage, but can result in turf stress. Stressed turf, in my opinion, is going to be more susceptible to disease. If possible, you want to water just before the turf shows stress. That takes a bit of practice and a touch of lawn zen, but is doable.

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