My grass has large patches of dried, dead-looking, straw-like growth. I read this may be fungus?? Or is this a type of grass which grows locally (Pitman, south NJ). Please e-mail to [email protected] if anyone has ideas!

You lawn may have the following problem:

As quoted from Identifying lawn diseases

Brown Patch

Brown Patch is most common to Bermuda, Kentucky Bluegrass, Centipede Grass, Bent Grass, St. Augustine, and ryegrasses in regions with high humidity and/or shade. Brown patch commonly starts as a small spot and can quickly spread outwards in a circular or horseshoe pattern up to a couple of feet wide. Often times, while expanding outwards, the inside of the circle will recover, leaving the brown areas resembling a smoke-ring.

PREVENTION

The best prevention for brown patch is to aerate often, reduce shade to effected areas, and follow a fertilization schedule to help prevent fertilization with excess amounts of nitrogen

CHEMICAL TREATMENT

The most common fungicides used on Brown Patch are: benomyl, and chlorothalonil.

It's better if we communicate through the AskMe web site to allow others to see the answers.

However, I was going to ask you for a .jpg picture of the problem area so I could better analyze your problem. So, knowing your e-mail address and communicating this way was going to be necessary, anyway.

Send me the pic and I'll get back to you.

In the meantime, big round areas of straw-like grass that are all dead are not likely to be any form of fungus yet this year. Fungus normally does it's damage in the late Spring/early Summer or any time when you have a stretch of hot and wet weather. We haven't had that yet along the 40 degree parallel (Columbus, Pittsburg, Philadelphia and southern NJ).

What you may be looking at is big dead patches of annual crabgrass. Some crabgrass grows very heavy from the center outward, which would give you the circles.

Whether, I hope you have already applied your early Spring fertilizer with crabgrass preventer to keep crabgrass from germinating in the areas where you have dead grass. Apply it now if you have not already done so.

Get back to me with the pics and we'll go from there.

(This answer is being sent via e-mail as requested and is posted on the AskMe site.)