If you have noticed your lawn dying or looking very sick, chances are your lawn has acquired a disease. When we notice our grass dying, the first thing we want to do is start watering! It is far too common to blame every lawn problem on drought. That is why it is so important to accurately diagnose a lawn problem.

While St. Augustine is a beautiful grass, it is all too common to have several different diseases present in a given year. The most common disease that infects St. Augustine is Take-all Root Rot. Take-all is a soil borne fungus that infects the stolons of the grass. The stolons are the runners or stems where the leaf blades are attached. Symptoms of Take-all include yellowing of the leaf blades followed by plant death. This usually occurs in patches and, if left untreated, will eventually kill the yard.

Control

The first step in controlling a turf disease is proper diagnosis. For example, if you or I diagnose a St. Augustine lawn as having Take-all, then a treatment program can be initiated. Since Take-all loves moist or wet conditions, cutting back on watering and fertilizer is a must. Watering and over-fertilizing are the main cultural practices that can be manipulated through the growing season. In other words, simply not applying more than the recommended amount of nitrogen and applying the correct amount of water will slow or prevent disease spread. A fungus has to have moisture to survive. As a last resort, applying a fungicide correctly will prevent or possibly cure a disease. There are many products available for lawn control at your local feed/seed or home improvement center.

Late September through October is the best time to apply preventative fungicide applications, if disease has been a problem this past season. But this won’t provide complete control. Most infections can be eventually eliminated over a period of years by combining fall fungicide applications with sound cultural practices. Maintaining a disease-free lawn in the coming years can only be accomplished by eliminating the stress that allowed the disease organisms to attack the lawn in the first place. Lawns are stressed by poor soil conditions combined with an imbalance of nutrients. Compaction, poor drainage, and thatch thicker than one inch are linked to disease outbreaks.