Lack of proper irrigation is the most common disease.

 

Thanks for responding guys.

I have the irrigation dialed in, just wanted to know what I needed to have on hand for a fall k b g reno going through its first summer.

 

What are the most common diseases that attack Kentucky Bluegrass? Which cause the most damage if not treated in a timely fashion?

If you had only one liquid fungicide in your arsenal, what would it be?

Thanks

Like @g-man said, irrigation or abiotic stress is the most common issue. More than 90% of samples sent to diagnostic labs came back as no disease present aka abiotic stress. That said dollar spot has been pretty well bred out of kbg. Would say that leaf spot or brown patch would be the big two. Pythium would easily be the scariest.

New to just using residential use fungicides, had a much larger arsenal on the golf course. Would say the two everyone with cool season lawns would need is propi and azoxy.

Said it before and will say it again, its a shame chlorothalonil is not labeled for residential lawn use.

 

I notice a lot of red thread in my neighborhood. Some brown patch. Azoxy and Prop.

 

I'm in the upper Midwest and I've had minor Powdery Mildew, Rust, and Leaf Spot in my KBG. 99% of home owners don't worry about a thing, including fungus. That being said, it's very easy to prevent with a fungicide program. Costs about the same as if you wait until you have a problem and then need to apply heavier to cure the issue.

 

I have been intentionally keeping it on the dry side this Spring and now Summer (most recently due to the humidity...just don't want to throw more water out there). But in a lot of ways, I'm getting socked because of it...nonstop disease (3 types so far) for about 6 weeks now. The growth rate slows down as it dries out, and then picks up again when the rain comes. I guess I'm seeing how strong the grass is...but this is also a bad disease year in terms of the weather...who would have predicted that? Wasn't the best year to go light on the water in some ways. But in other ways, it has been a good decision.

One of my neighbors' lawns (who is watering about 4-5x more frequently, but I'm not sure about actual water volume per week) just started getting major brown areas as well, and I doubt it's drought stress given the watering frequency...just a really bad disease year. Thinking I don't feel as bad about exacerbating it with less watering, given that adequate/too much water appears to causing the same sort of effects (though his lawn very well could have different disease going on than mine given the differing species composition and watering practices...maybe more along the lines of Pythium and Brown Patch on his instead of Dollar Spot, brown patch, and red thread on mine).

I also don't use fungicides preventatively (almost never) and will not even treat curatively unless I really feel I should. Kind of brown out there now (the dollar spot / brown patch on the North facing TTTF/KBG blew up almost overnight this past week with high 80s to 90 and humidity and the dollar spot potential continues to peak above 70% chance). Currently just watching it happen and spraying bacteria and some milk recently and hoping it does something to keep it from getting as bad as it could...or that a break in the weather pattern will nudge toward lowered pressure and some recovery.