Sickly Lawn Transformed to Self Sustaining Turf
Summer fungal disease in cool season turf (fescue, bluegrass, etc.) is the biggest problem facing our lawns in warm climates. As with most disease issues, the problem is best combated with lively soil full of strong, beneficial fungi that can combat weaker, harmful fungi. A commonly recommended cure for fungus is to spray with a fungicide. Most of the time, I disagree with this because most fungicides kill all fungi, including the fungi that can prevent and defeat fungal disease. Using this treatment, we are likely to have the same problem every year, because we are destroying our only hope for a natural fungus control when we kill all fungi. We have been a huge proponent of using our John & Bob's system to build complex life in the soil to prevent and/or defeat destructive fungus in turfgrass.
Lawn on July 25th
We had the opportunity to treat a lawn last summer that was infected with large infestations of Rhizoctonia (brown patch) and Pythium to a lesser degree. The simplest way to stop these diseases is to dry out the lawn, even to the extent of dry spots in the lawn. It is moisture and high temperatures that feed these fungal diseases. On July 25th we cut the water way back, treated with the four organic components of John & Bob’s Nature’s Gardening Kit: Optimize, Maximize, Nourish-Biosol, and Penetrate. For this particular issue with harmful fungi, we also used John & Bob’s Citral-Blast, an organic fungicide. The lawn looked terrible on this day (see photo above) and our experience is that even if we kill the fungus, turf recovery and excellence takes a very long time.
Lawn on September 17th
Every 7 days we reapplied Citral-Blast and on August 15th we increased the irrigation to normal levels. On Sept 4th we reapplied John & Bob’s Optimize, Maximize, and Nourish-Biosol (pre-mixed together into John & Bob’s Blend). By September 17th we were stunned as to the beauty of the turf and amazed at the speed of the recovery. We still had hot weather in September and October and yet the lawn recovered fully, even before the weather changed dramatically. In our experience, we never were able to achieve full recovery without a full seasonal change, until now.
Full front lawn on September 17th
Treating the fungus with natural organic fungicides, like Citral-Blast, that are good for the lawn and soil while applying microbes, food for microbes and attractants for microbes in John & Bob’s Optimize, Maximize, Nourish-Biosol, and Penetrate worked better than anything else we have witnessed in our 38 years of addressing these type of problems. Create the same success in your lawn and garden. Order the organic John and Bob’s Nature’s Gardening Kit today by clicking here with free shipping on our 1,000 sq ft kit and up. Don’t forget to add Citral-Blast to your cart if you also have signs of summer fungal disease!
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