How To Kill Lawn Fungus

Lawn fungus, in addition to being an eyesore next to your home, destroys grass. Normally it shows up as brown splotches on your lawn and it spreads rapidly. Once established, it’s tough to get rid of, so the sooner you get to work fighting it, the better chance you have of ridding your lawn of it.

If you happen to live in a rainy area such as Seattle, odds are that you will encounter more problems with lawn fungi than those living in drier areas of the country. Moist environments are the perfect habitats for all kinds of lawn enemies such as mold and fungus. With moisture, mold can grow in less than a day.

Fungus sort of creeps up on you without notice. In fact, the biggest problem with lawn fungus is that it starts out unobtrusive and almost unnoticeable. You’ll see a brown patch and think nothing of it. Then suddenly, two days later, patches of brown spots are overlaying your lawn.

As always, the absolute optimal remedy for lawn fungi is to prevent it from getting a foothold. If you are able to prevent it from getting a foot hold in the first place, you won’t have it to worry about. A healthy lawn has a healthy immune system and is unlikely to be susceptible to fungus. A healthy lawn means that it’s getting enough food or nutrients, and water.

In addition, it means that the soil has a pH level that makes it difficult for fungus to take hold. Fungi likes soil that has a low pH. If you keep it high, say around 6.6 to 6.8, this will be perfect for your plants and help to prevent fungi from getting a foothold. Ensuring that your soil has proper pH can also help your lawn recover from fungus. To test your soil’s pH, you can get a soil test kit from your garden center.

Another technique to prevent fungus from infecting your lawn is to not water it overnight. Instead, water it in the morning. This allows the lawn to take advantage of the sun to dry it out and prevent it from getting water-logged. Watering the lawn at night tends to promote fungus. The exception is if you live in a dry or desert area. Then watering at night does not increase conditions for fungus growth. Also, avoid mowing a wet lawn as this is more conducive to spreading any fungus.

Simply put, a fungicide is any type of agent that demolishes or prevents the fungus from growing. There are natural fungicides as well as synthetic ones made by manufacturers. To get rid of your lawn fungus, take your fungicide and follow the manufacturer’s instructions which usually involves spreading it over the infected area. Many homeowners will apply a maintenance application of fungicide once a year to their lawn to reduce the incidence of the disease.

Now, usually, lawn fungus is something that you don’t want and you will try your best to rid your lawn of it. But, recently,  scientists have developed many varieties of grasses called endophytic grasses. These grasses are purposely cultivated with live fungi growing inside of their leaf blades.

This type of fungi is by nature, toxic to a variety of the lawn pests that you will find in your yard. This includes billbugs, fall army-worms, chinch bugs, and a host of other critters. The purpose for developing these strains of grasses is to reduce the amount of pesticides that would be required to fight these pests. If the grass can use it’s built-in protection to defend itself, it doesn’t need as much poisonous chemical help from us.