Watering after disease?

[LearningEveryday]

Renovated lawn Sept 10th with great results and then got hit hard by Pythium last week. I applied Headway and have stopped the disease in it's tracks. There was some damage. I consider it a lot of damage, but to the most people it looks minor. With temps in the low 70s for the 10 day forecast, I took a chance with seeding/topdressing the areas that got hit hard. I'm afraid to do any watering now. What do you all recommend?

[LearningEveryday]

What do you all recommend I do for watering?

[STL]

Since you reseeded, I would water and primarily do it early if you can so the foliage have a chance to dry out but the soil is still moist. If you don't water, the seeds are probably not going to germinate. Keep an eye on it but, from my understanding, pythium is at its worse when it's hot so hopefully that's behind you.

[Marinegrunt]

I too got hit hard by Pythium and lost a lot of grass. It hit me towards the end of September. I spot seeded after I saw the last signs of it. We then had 5 days of rain and I've been watering since. We have been in the low 70's but did hit 79° the other day. I have no signs of Pythium. From the research I've done it takes hot, humid, and wet conditions for it to start. I don't think I'd worry about it unless you got in the mid 80's or hotter for 3 days or longer. As STL mentioned, if you don't water your seed won't germinate. Just have a fungicide on hand for a just in case situation. I used Subdue Maxx at the time I spot seeded and plan on using it again if temps rise or if I notice anything. You did say the headway stopped it in its tracks. Have it ready to stop it again if need be. I think we'll be fine being temps are only 70.

[bernstem]

I deal with a lot of disease issues in St. Louis, though not on new turf so much. In my experience, you want to help the turf recover while treating. I tend to err on the side of too much rather than too little water, even with foliar diseases (like pythium). Ultimately, as Marine says, the seed won't germinate without water. You have to trust your fungicide to keep it suppressed until conditions no longer favor development. Follow the fungicide label and use dosing at the higher end of recommended.

If you are confident in your diagnosis of Pythium, you might consider Cyazofamid (Segway) or Mefenoxam (Subdue) in the future. They should give you better control of Pythium, but are not as broad spectrum as Headway. They are also an option for Fungicide rotation if needed.

[andy10917]

Lawns with Pythium don't tend to have it occur only once. Some really great work is the use of Phosphites (not Phosphates!) as a preventative has been done by Penn State and others. I've written about it several times - use the Search functions to find it.