Although you might think that it’s cold enough during the winter to stop any bacteria or fungus from growing in or inhabiting your Tennessee or Mississippi lawn, you would be wrong. There are several types of turfgrass diseases that can overwinter in your yard and leave you frustrated in the spring when they crop up unexpectedly. Thankfully, your friends at Greenkeeper have you covered with the information about these lawn diseases you need to know and the best thing you can do to prevent them.
Yellow Patch
Yellow patch crops up during cold, wet weather and is similar to a widespread lawn disease called brown patch that usually occurs during humid weather in the summer. The main symptom of brown patch is large brown patches appearing all over your yard. Just like brown patch, yellow patch causes broad patches or rings of yellowed grass. If you look closely at grass leaves infected with yellow or brown patches, you will see patchy, discolored spots. This disease harms the appearance and the health of your lawn, and if left untreated, can even kill your yard entirely.
Snow Mold
Also known as fusarium patch or pink snow mold, this disease causes discolored patches to appear in your yard. They start as gray or light tan in color but change to a pink or salmon shade when exposed to sunlight. The patches can form small, usually just a few inches in diameter, but with snow cover on the ground that isn’t frozen, the fungi’s favorite growing conditions, the patches can expand to up to two feet across! While this disease will eventually clear up on its own when the temperature warms up, and the humidity drops, it can still leave your yard with unsightly discolored patches and weak spots that could let another, more serious lawn disease take over.
Powdery Mildew
Powdery mildew overwinters in the live tissue of your grass plants, rearing its ugly head in the spring and causing a gray or white powdery-like substance to appear on the blades of grass in your lawn. This substance is actually the vegetative part of the fungus, and its spores can quickly spread to the remaining healthy areas of your yard by the wind. If the infection isn’t treated quickly, it will cause the grass blades to turn yellow and red as they die, and the turfgrass becomes quite thin.
Rust Disease
Like powdery mildew, rust disease overwinters in your yard unknown to you until symptoms appear in the spring. Early symptoms of rust are small yellow spots on the leaves or stems of the grass plant, which grow larger and develop a raised center. As the disease progresses, these raised centers can burst open, spreading the microscopic spores that cause the disease to healthy grass plants. A severe infection can take over an entire yard, thinning and weakening the grass until it’s at risk during stressful events like abnormal weather or heavy use
Preventing And Treating Winter Turfgrass Diseases on Tennessee and Mississippi Lawns
Once these diseases have taken effect, the best, most effective course of action is to treat your lawn with a fungicide. By investing in lawn fungicide and disease control from Greenkeeper, you get everything you need to keep winter lawn diseases from taking over your yard. This includes preventative treatments to stop infections before they begin, experienced technicians that can spot signs of the disease quickly, and curative fungicide applications when these troublesome diseases occur.
For All Your Lawn Care Needs, Be Sure To Call Greenkeeper
If you’re seeing signs of disease in your Tennessee or Mississippi lawn or want to help make sure these diseases won’t encroach on your yard, you need to call the experts at Greenkeeper. In addition to our comprehensive eight-step lawn care program that will give your lawn all it needs to fight off diseases, we offer lawn fungicide and disease control treatments to help your property stay healthy and look its best, no matter the season.
Feel free to reach out to us online via our contact form, or give us a call at 901-861-2338 for Tennessee residents and 662-895-2088 for those living in Mississippi.