Where my lawn has been, where it is now, and how to improve it

[Swamp_Fox]

Hey everyone,
I'm hoping for some help with fungus that I dealt with last year and would like to hear off this year. My back lawn was renovated in fall of 15. I started by dethatching with a power take, scalping, and vacuuming up the debris. I used one app of Round Up for kill (I hadn't found this forum and didn't know about starting with two apps), followed by fertilizing with 13-13-13 and power seading in a tree, creeping red, and KBG mix. The seed is just from my local farm store so it's nothing super special. By the end of fall if 15 it looked ok. By May of last year it looked like this.


Given my complete lack of seeding, I was pretty dang happy with this! Prior to this pick this lawn was almost entirely weeds, really heavy quack grass. My aim is to sell this house so I'm not looking to put in a really high maintenance turf. Just something thick and nice. There's obviously some weeds in the pic but not too many given that I hadn't sprayed herbicide at that time. Fast forward to June and the back yard began to suffer. Near the house (which doesn't have gutters) I began to experience some type of fungus.



I talked with the farm store and they recommended I fertilized through it, that didn't work, neither did a heavy app of milorginite (again going off the instructions I had been given; add nitrogen). From reading this forum I realize this must be a type of fungus and would love to hear how I could head it off this year. The yard is still a bit bare where it came through this year. Hopefully the KBG will fill it in a bit this summer, what does not bounce back I will overseer in the fall.

My plan for this year is. Fertilizer is down; a light app of 25-0-05. I'm planning on waiting another week to encourage dormant weeds to pop up, and then hitting the lawn with blanket app of Tenacity. I'd like to start a fungicide whenever necessary for Zone 5A, I have Cleary's 336, would another fungicide work better?

Through reading I've seen the claim made that growth regulators help keep fungus at bay and also promote better root development, would a growth regulator be adventitious for me to use? I do not have underground irrigation here, I water manually, so anything I can do to help the roots is a bonus in my eyes. Any advise would be appreciated!

[llO0DQLE]

Since no one more experienced with fungus than me has chimed in, I'll just tell you what is usually said here in these situations. I think that if it's fungus then you need to ID the fungus so you can treat it with the appropriate anti-fungal. That being said, here is what most people will say here - it's hard to diagnose fungus on the internet. There is a fungus ID tool in one of the university websites - I can't remember which one exactly but do a google search. Try Purdue or Rutgers or something like that. Hopefully someone more experienced can chime in as to what they think that looks like and maybe give you a best guess.

[HoosierLawnGnome]

Yeah, you need to narrow down the fungus you may have had last summer first before you can formulate a strategy to fix it. More fertilization can encourage some fungus. I don't think you have grubs, given the June timing, but I'd check anyways.

Early summer suspects with a spotty pattern would be dollar spot or maybe red thread with your cooler temperatures. Look up close at the lesions on the blades and also step back and look like you did in your picture for visual identification.

Your hope now is to get it to fill in before summer sets in and prevent it from happening again. I'd apply a preventative fungicide like propicanizole that can hit a broad range of whatever you determine your suspected fungi are and encourage spreading through cultivation and light fertilization. Get a list of the top three, then pick a fungicide that can prevent those three. Adopt cultivation and fertilization practices that help you.

[Swamp_Fox]

llO0DQLE And Hoosier, thank you for your suggestions! I've been meaning to get back to this thread for a few days. I actually do have more pics to upload, but because my threads need to be approved and you can only add a couple pics per post I wasn't able to upload more. I believe I had a mildew for sure earlier in the summer, I'm not sure what those patches are, or if they are related in any way. Later in the summer I had rust.