Falling Sycamore Leaves

Yesterday, I came home to this:


A smattering of crinkly Sycamore leaves on my lawn. This happens every time we have a cool, wet spring. One of our foresters calls it "Wet Weather Disease." It's technical name is Sycamore Anthracnose.

Are you raking leaves in May, too?

Lawn Brown Spots

I mentioned earlier this week that all the rain may lead to lawn disease when the weather warms up. This weekend Kansas City is supposed to be a toasty 87 degrees. This means we may see a flare up in lawn disease. (Warm nights + moisture = a breeding ground for fungus.)

Brown Patch, the most common Fescue lawn disease, causes thin patches of light brown grass that are roughly circular in shape. Sometimes, the disease skips the circular phase and presents as large, thin, brown areas. To determine if disease is causing your brown spots, look at an individual leaf blade for lesions.

This, my friends, is what the lesions look like.
I know, because this came from the lawn of yours truly.

Ryan Lawn & Tree can take care of your lawn disease. Request a free estimate. (We can also prevent disease.)

Rain and Your Lawn

Photo from Galyna Andrushko - Fotolia.com

We have been getting a ton of rain in the Kansas City Metro area recently. Initially, I was grateful to skip a day of watering my container plants; then I started to worry they were getting a little too wet.

Containers aside, what does all of this rain mean for our Fescue lawns?

Because the weather is cool and the rain has stopped for now, it may simply mean we get to enjoy our lush, green spring lawns free from drought or heat stress. However, yards with drainage problems or standing water can pose a threat. Waterlogged soil has less oxygen available for plant roots and may lead to wet wilt, a fairly rare condition.

Another possible complication concerns temperatures. If they heat up too soon, it will make our currently wet lawns more susceptible to fungal disease. These diseases can potential kill grass, especially in Fescue lawns planted in the last two years.

For now, though, I think we can safely enjoy the new life that the rain has brought forth. If conditions change, you know I'll keep you posted.

Sick Sycamore

Tom pruning our Sycamore last spring.

If you have a sycamore tree in your yard that is dropping its leaves, it may be suffering from anthracnose. This is an aesthetic disease, and won't affect the health of your tree. However, as a Sycamore owner, I know first-hand how annoying it is to clean up after these trees, especially when "fall" comes twice a year.

Ryan Lawn & Tree can treat Sycamores in August to lessen the affects of anthracnose in following years. The treatment is good for two years, although you may have some leaf and twig drop the first year.

Brown Spots in Bermuda Lawns?

(This one is for those of you who prefer warm season grasses.)

Every spring, some Bermuda lawns (especially those planted with hybrid varieties) are dotted with brown areas. This is the result of Spring Dead Spot (SDS).

Young Bermuda lawns (less than 3 years) have some resistance to the condition, and these lawns are affected much less than older, established lawns.

Even though symptoms of SDS show up in the spring, the disease starts in the fall when cool, wet conditions are common. The brown spots are often the size of dinner plates, but will run together resulting in large, irregular dead areas.

What can you do?
It is difficult to control spring dead spot, although keeping thatch in check through regular aerations may aid in prevention.

'Tis the season for Snow Mold

With Gary Lezak ushering in 2010 with plenty of snow in the Kansas City area, we have been presented conditions for a disease called Gray Snow Mold on cool-season lawns. Typically, our winters are not as conducive for this disease, but this year seems to be an exception and we have received plenty of calls of concern. As areas of snow cover begin to melt, you may notice some tan, matted areas on your lawn, often times with an oily appearance. These spots are typically circular in shape and about 6-12" in diameter.

Fortunately, this disease is normally an aesthetic problem on mature stands of grass, however, immature seedlings may be killed, making reseeding necessary. To aid in recovery of mature stands, rake the affected areas and remove the debris. Occasionally seeding may be required here as well. I have attached a link from Penn State University with a slide show of pictures that you can reference, and an additional link from Purdue University with an in depth article about the disease if you would like to know more.

If you think you may have the disease and would like an additional opinion, please call your Ryan Pro today.

Josh Chabon
Turf Manager
Ryan Lawn and Tree

Dried, curled up leaves on Maples

Dead leaves on a Sycamore with anthracnose. The tree will leaf out again this summer, replacing these leaves with healthy ones.

Heather wrote about anthracnose on her oak leaf hydrangea a few weeks ago.

With our wet spring, maples and other trees have also been affected by this disease. This is a purely aesthetic problem, and treatment is not recommended. (The exception would be if the tree seems to have this problem year after year, or if you have a Sycamore with anthracnose.)

It is a hassle now, when leaves are dropping and the tree looks unhealthy, but in a few weeks, the tree will leaf out again and go back to normal.

To help your trees recover, water them during dry spells this summer.

Are you having trouble with anthracnose? Is this the first year you have encountered this problem?

Feel free to E-mail pictures of your lawn and tree problems, and we'll address them on the blog!

Brown Patch!

This picture gives you an idea of the circular appearance of Brown Patch.

It has been hot and humid, and yesterday I got the call: We had brown patch in our lawn. It is amazing how quickly it spreads. Two days ago, the lawn was looking great. Yesterday, there were streaks of brown in many areas of the lawn. As I was preparing to take pictures of the disease, I stuck my hand down in the grass. It is unbelievable how "muggy" it was next to the soil.

Brown patch can be identified by the lesions on the leaves. These lesions rule out grub damage and drought as causes of the damage. The clinical description of brown patch says the disease may appear in circular patches, sometimes with green grass in the center. I kind of saw this--mostly it just looked like brown stripes from a distance.

The easiest way to tell if it is a disease, is to look for lesions like the one pictured above. Leaf blades may have more than one lesion.

Brown Patch can be treated with a fungicide. If you decide not to treat, the grass may grow out of the disease. Doing so has some risk, however, as if the disease gets bad enough, it can kill parts of your lawn. If you seeding in the last year, I recommend treating, as young Fescue lawns can be devastated by disease.

Have you seen brown spots in your lawn? Are they from disease?

Anthracnose

I noticed I have anthracnose on my oak leaf hydrangeas. I took a picture of one of the leaves that display the most symptoms. Anthracnose fungi thrive in cool, moist environments (commonly experienced in the spring). The leaves that have emerged since earlier in the season are not displaying symptoms.

Anthracnose is a general term for a variety of fungal diseases that affect numerous plants. (Different species of fungi infect different plants.) Symptoms on leaves include brown or black spots, or numerous specks. If leaves are badly infected, they can die and fall off. Although symptoms are most common on leaves, antracnose can occur on other parts of the plant (including fruit).

To minimize anthracnose on your plants, promote air circulation by pruning your trees and shrubs. Also, clean up infected leaves and dispose of them to minimize re-infection when the conditions become favorable once again.

Brown Spots in Lawns!

Brown spots become more common as the summer wears on, especially in the transition zone.

There are several causes of brown spots in summer lawns. Three of the most common causes are drought, grub damage and disease.

Drought:This is perhaps the most common cause of brown grass in the summer. If you want your lawn to stay nice and green, you must ensure your lawn gets one to two inches of water per week. Using a rain gauge will help you determine when your lawn has received enough water. Another guideline is to water when the lawn starts to take on a bluish tinge, or when you can see
your footprints in the grass after you have walked across the lawn. Drought damage will cause all or part of your lawn to turn tan to brown. If enough time passes without enough water, all or part of your lawn will die and need to be reseeded in the fall.

Grub Damage:Another common cause of brown spots in our area is grub damage. The easiest way to identify grub damage is to get down and examine the brown spots. If you the affected area pulls up easily, like a carpet, then grubs are the likely culprit. You may even catch some grubs still feeding in the area. Your local garden center will have products to prevent and control grubs.

Disease: Lawn disease can also cause brown spots in lawns. Most lawn diseases are caused by our hot, humid summer days and nights. The most common disease active in our area is Brown Patch. The first signs of Brown Patch are thin patches of light brown grass that are roughly circular in shape. Other times, the disease skips the circular phase and large areas of the lawn will turn thin and brown. Once again, your local garden center will have products to control disease, although the products with the longest protection period are only available to commercial pesticide applicators.

If you decide not to treat, the grass may grow out of the problem. However, this is risky as just as often the grass will die and need to be reseeded in the fall. If your lawn was planted last fall (2008) I strongly recommend treating, as these young seedlings are hit hardest by disease.

Brown spots are ubiquitous in the summer, but what are YOUR lawn concerns? Leave a comment below if you have questions and I will get an answer for you.

Rust Diseases

We had a couple of good rains over the weekend. The weather was so nice, I had to get outside. While walking with my family, I came across a cedar that was displaying signs of rust. Cedars and junipers are the alternate host for rust diseases and are infected in late summer. The fungus overwinters in galls and cankers on these plants. In spring when wet conditions exist, spores are produced which infect prized crabapples, hawthorns, quince or other members of the rose family.

The picture above is cedar-quince rust. Spores are produced in that gelatinous material on the twig canker. They will be carried by the wind and infect nearby quince plants. The picture below is cedar-apple rust. You can see the orange, gelatinous horns containing spores that will infect crabapples and apple trees. (On a side note, there is also a bagworm hanging in the foreground. More on those tomorrow!)

Protect your Crabapples

Crabapples are starting to leaf out. This means it’s time to get on a preventative program to protect susceptible varieties of crabapples (and hawthorns) from fungal diseases like apple scab or cedar apple rust. These are two very common diseases that occur during our cool, wet spring months.

At Ryan Lawn & Tree, we recommend a series of three preventative applications for the best results. The reason more than one application is recommended is because the leaf tissue must be protected as it emerges; otherwise, disease symptoms (like those pictured above) will appear later in the season.

Scorched Pear Trees?

Photo from: http://wrir4.ucdavis.edu/

If twigs on your pear or apple trees look burned or scorched, chances are the trees are suffering from a fungal disease known as fire blight.

Fire blight is a difficult to control fungal disease that popped up in more trees than normal this year because of above average rainfall this spring and summer. The best way to get rid of fire blight is through very careful pruning. (In the case of large infestations, where large portions of the tree are infected, control through pruning may not be possible.)

You will have to sterilize pruning equipment between every cut with a 10% bleach or 25% alcohol solution. Make your pruning cut 10 to 12 inches below the discolored area of the branch. Because the bacteria are so easily transmitted, care should be taken in disposing of infected plant material. Either burn or discard in the trash. Do not leave infected material where the bacteria might be spread to surrounding bushes or trees.

Brown Pine Needles

If you have ever wondered why some pines seem to grow poorly in the Midwest, you have already noticed the disease I want to highlight today--Tip Blight.

Tip blight is a fungal disease spread during spring rains. The disease only affects new needle growth, which turn brown, fail to develop fully and may form a "Shepard's Crook."

Tip blight is fairly easy to identify and treat. You will have to use plant protection products annually to keep the infection from coming back every year. If you do not treat, the tree will continue to decline and will eventually die.

The most common hosts of tip blight are Scotch pine and Austrian pine. Avoid planting these species when possible. If you already have some of these trees in your landscape, keep them healthy (this is the first line of defense). Water well during dry periods, including the winter season.

Beware of Brown Patch

Photo from www.oznet.ksu.edu

Brown Patch is a nasty fungal disease that attacks Fescue lawns. This is a huge problem in areas that are humid in the summer.

Initially the disease appears as roughly circular, as in the picture above. Eventually, the patches may come together and take over large sections of the yard.

There are some plant protection products available at your local garden store that will control the disease for a short period of time. These are worth the effort if you have a particularly brutal case of disease or if you seeded your lawn in the last year.

Small cases will run their course and leave dead leaf tissue that is easily removed through mowing. Because it is a foliar disease, treatment is not always necessary, depending on your expectations for your lawn.

To avoid disease, water in the mornings to give the lawn time to dry out before nightfall.