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K-State Turf and Landscape Blog

Last hiccups of summer diseases

Early last week we saw a couple last gasps of the summer diseases, with some Pythium on a tall fescue lawn:

It was greasy, it was mushy, and after “a night in the box” there was classic Pythium mycelium. Foliar Pythium is rare on tall fescue lawns, usually coming in during very wet weather on sites that have received a little too much water and perhaps a little too much N. When this one came in, it was after one last blast of some heat, but with cool, cool temps on the horizon. Now that we are coming into this nice, consistent cool weather it’s really too late to consider fungicides, and instead we can concentrate on fall renovations AND tweaking cultural practices to help reduce disease risk next year. There was also a last hiccup of brown patch from a golf course fairway. Same story – with lows in the low 60s and even 50s, those diseases should stay quiet and hopefully we won’t see them until 2018.

Next door in Missouri, Dr. Miller is reporting some continued sightings of Pythium root rot (which is different from foliar Pythium) and basal anthracnose. I would agree we are not out of the woods yet. You can see his photos HERE.