7 Common Types of Lawn Disease In Pennsylvania

Brown Patch

Brown patch is most prevalent in the summer when the weather is hot and humid. It generally manifests itself as big, broadly round, somewhat uneven areas that look to be dry or dead. The perimeter of the patch may look darker than the interior at times.

If the illness has been present for an extended period of time, the inside of the patch may heal, leaving a ring of dead or thin grass surrounding it.

Red Thatch

Red thread flourishes in cold, humid climates and is most commonly seen on lawns with low nitrogen levels. If you notice thin, red hairs or strands protruding from the grass blades, you have it. If left untreated, red thatch can live for years.

Rust Disease

Rust diseases usually appear on the lawn as uneven light-green or yellow areas, but closer inspection reveals orange-yellow rust spores on individual grass blades. This illness will usually start showing in late summer and early fall, particularly in areas that are shaded and have inadequate ventilation. If your grass hasn’t been properly fertilized, rust can emerge in the spring, so be sure you feed it all year to help avoid it.

Summer Patch

Summer patch is a very aggressive fungus that infects and destroys grassroots. It can infiltrate root tissue and stay unnoticed even in the winter since it can live in infected plant waste or perennial hosts. When the weather gets hot, the fungus infiltrates your lawn’s vascular system, killing roots and preventing grass plants from absorbing water and nutrients.

Fairy Ring

Fairy rings are arcs of mushrooms that grow naturally in grassy regions or woodlands. They might be partial or complete circles with a diameter of over 30 feet.

On lawns, there are three varieties of fairy rings:

• those that have a darker green flush of growth, a dying grass zone, and mushrooms.
• those with mushrooms and a darkened green ring.
• those with only mushrooms.

Necrotic Ring Spot

NRS (Necrotic Ring Spot) is a lawn disease that mostly affects cool-season grasses like Kentucky Bluegrass. Bluegrass suffers from the illness because the virus infects and kills the crowns and roots, causing a sluggish recovery. Although they are not linked taxonomically, this pathogen is part of a broader group of pathogens that cause “patch” illnesses in turfgrass.

Snow Mold

Snow mold is a fungus that develops as the snow melts in the early spring. There are two forms of snow mold – gray snow mold and pink snow mold.

Pink snow mold infects the plant’s crown, causing more serious damage than gray snow mold, which merely infects the leaf tissue. When there is a lengthy period of snow cover on the ground that is not entirely frozen, snow mold develops.

Snow mold can also grow among fallen leaves that haven’t been picked up, or amid tall grasses that should have been cut again before the winter arrived.