Our experts have come up with the eight most dangerous lawn diseases that you must know while performing lawn mowing in these areas:
A Brown patch is made up of patches of yellow-to-brown grass that can be up to 3 feet long and have a round shape. The diseased grass gets darker and turns a yellow-brown color. The center of the patch looks a little sunken and is a lighter color than the outside.
Most brown patch is caused by spring and fall weather that is too warm for the time of year, especially when it is also too wet and humid. Brown patches can also be found in cool-season lawns during the summer because this disease grows best in hot weather.
Summer patch has symptoms that look like brown patch, but the infected areas can be of different sizes and shapes. Summer patch makes patches of thin, straw-colored grass that may or may not have a small, green, healthy-looking patch in the middle.
Summer patch shows up between June and September when the temperature is at least 85 degrees and the humidity is high. Soil that is too compacted and grass that is cut too low are also often to blame.
The dollar spot starts out looking like a circle about the size of a silver dollar. However, infected areas often grow and join together. There are small, straw-colored spots on some of the grass blades.
A dollar spot could happen at any time during the growing season of your lawn, as long as it is not too cold or too hot. Dollar spot is usually caused by not enough fertilizer or too much water, and mowing too low makes it easy for this disease to spread.
Leaf spot makes small oval-shaped spots appear on the grass blades. These spots are usually dark brown with brown-to-purple edges. When a leaf spot gets into a lawn, it rots the crowns and roots, which makes the grass thin out or even die.
Most likely, the leaf spot on your lawn is caused by weather that is too hot or too cold for the time of year. Leaf spots can also start and spread because the soil is too hard or there is too much fertilizer.
A red thread is a very hardy disease that can be seen by the red threads that grow across lawns that have it. At first, this disease may look like a thin patch of grass. However, that thin patch of grass will soon grow red hairs or strands, as well as tiny red spores that spread when touched.
Especially in early spring, red thread spreads when the weather is cool and damp. Red thread grows best in lawns that don't have enough nutrients, which means that any number of things could cause this common lawn disease to spread.
Rust is a lawn disease that looks almost exactly like the rust that forms on metals. Lawns that are infected will look like they have yellow spots, but if you look closely, you will see orange spores on the grass blades. Most of the time, these spores end up on clothes or tools as an orange powder.
Rust happens when temperatures are about the same from early spring to late fall. The rust fungi will likely spread if there is too much shade, too much water, or not enough fertilizer.
There are two different kinds of this disease: pink snow mold and gray snow mold. However, the symptoms of both types are the same. Infected lawns get patches of damaged grass that are hard and matted together. Pink or gray strands of fungus start to grow in these spots. If there is a lot of snow, the symptoms won't show up until the snow melts in the spring. In Illinois, the most common kind of snow mold is gray.
Most snow mold is caused by cold, damp fall weather that leads into winter. This disease usually spreads where there is snow, but pink mold can grow even when there is no snow. Snow mold is often caused by too much shade and too much fertilizer in the fall.
Most of the time, powdery mildew is found on garden plants and tree leaves, but it can also be found on lawns. Infected plants get a "dusting" of tiny white circles that spread quickly and cover the whole plant. If you don't treat infections, thick layers of mildew will build up and cover whole plants or large parts of the lawn.
Powdery mildew thrives in places where the temperature is between 60 and 80 degrees and the air is dry. Powdery mildew is caused by fungi, and these fungi need humidity to grow. However, if temperatures are too high, this disease will spread much more slowly. Plants that are in a lot of shade are more likely to get sick than plants that are in the sun.
Call Jim’s Mowing And Garden Care Service to know more about diseases that you can find at the time of lawn mowing in Highett`, lawn mowing in Oakleigh South, lawn mowing in Mount Evelyn, and lawn Mowing in Hampton East.