Symptoms Of Brown Patch Lawn Disease

Brown Patch is a lawn disease which is most evident by the rounded dying areas it produces in lawns. These round patches in the lawn are most often circled by a perimeter which is darker in colour, most often light to dark brown.

Brown Patch disease attacks and feeds on the leaf of the lawn, and is most often perpetuated and it’s severity increased by poor lawn health. The patches will most often be first noticeable in the Spring and from a size of around 20 cm, the size of the Brown Patches can then increase to around a metre in diameter.

As a lawn disease, it’s pathogen agent must be brought onto the lawn by an outside source, which could be people shoes after visiting a lawn with the disease, shared lawn mowers and pets. Brown Patch cannot always be seen as it’s effects will diminish at different times of the year, so it’s spread is most often unknowing.

Curing Brown Patch Lawn Disease

Treatment of Brown Patch should consist of two steps:

Brown Patch should be treated with the appropriate lawn fungicide which can be purchased at the local gardening store. Without specifically killing the Pathogen, the disease will live for years in the soil, to be unknowingly spread onto other properties, and to re-emerge on ours when lawn health diminishes again.

Brown Patch should also be treated with Cultural Management practices, which simply means to make the lawn inhospitable for the disease to survive – while simultaneously creating conditions for a healthy lawn, because healthy lawns fight off lawn disease.

This involves pruning bushes and trees to remove shade on the lawn, watering only in the morning and reducing watering, establishing a good year round fertilising program using quality fertilisers, removing thatch when necessary, and aerating the lawn and soil if it’s compacted or retains too much water.