Last week LJ asked about the peculiar discoloration in a lawn that used to be beautiful and is now speckled with lots of yellow spots in the lawn.
To me, the photo showed what looked like a fungal infection. I suggested taking a sample of the lawn to a nursery for further diagnosis and then treating the lawn with a fungicidal spray to restore the health of the lawn.
But there are many things that can affect the lawn. I will also suggest that the area be examined for insects as well. Once you’ve cut out the 12 by 12 inch piece of turf, check out the roots. They are looking for maggots, chinch bugs or sod webworms.
Any of these creatures, in their bulk, could help make your lawn look so terrible. Maggots are the larval stage of a wide variety of different beetles that we have in this forest neck. They are really ugly creatures too.
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If you find plump “C” -shaped, chalk-gray, caterpillar-like immobile beetles in the excavated chunk, you’ve found maggots. Finding one on the sample isn’t a big deal, but if there are six or more in your sample, they could be what makes the lawn look so dirty. They feed on the roots of the grass, which does a lot of damage and yellows the lawn pretty quickly.
There are “natural” pesticides that can be used. Dairy disease spores sprayed over a deeply watered lawn to bring the maggots closer to the surface are a fairly effective method of hunting maggots.
Chinch bugs are dark, winged bugs one-sixth of an inch long that, oddly enough, stink when disturbed or crushed. The young nymphs are bright red beetles with a white ribbon across their backs. Chinch bugs gather in open, sunny parts of the lawn, which the photo seems to show.
To combat chinch bugs, it is recommended to soak the lawn with soapy water. Dilute two quarts of water with one ounce of liquid dish soap, then water the lawn with this mixture. You really want to soak the lawn with this mixture and then place a flannel sheet over it.
The chinch beetles remain trapped on the flannel as they attempt to leave the soapy lawn. Then, gather up the sheet and rinse it in a tub of soapy water to kill the bugs.
Next, you should rinse the lawn so that the soap solution is well diluted and does not harm the grass. It is recommended that the lawn be watered really well for three to four weeks to make the area less attractive to beetles.
After all, your lawn could be home to lawn webworms. These guys chew blades of grass, right on the straw line, and pull the severed blades into their tunnels in the ground. The sward webworm seems to like blue grass, so they could be a culprit.
“Natural” controls against the turf webworm would be spraying the lawn when the webworms are still very young with Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki. This liquid bacterium is very effective and very safe at fighting all kinds of “bad” insects in the larval stage.
So I suggest that you go out and really check the lawn for soil-dwelling pests that might eat the roots or chew on the blades of grass themselves, which is what makes your lawn look so sad.
A good rake to remove deep layers of thatch in the lawn would also be of great help. With more oxygen movement, better water and fertilizer absorption, and stronger, straighter blades of grass, the lawn naturally becomes healthier.
Another tip: Do not mow the lawn too short in the heat of the year. Let the blades of grass grow longer between mowings. The longer blade shades the ground, keeping the grass roots healthier and less sun-cooked.
Keep diggin ‘in doing things right.
Tracey Fitzgibbon is a certified gardener. Send garden-related questions to Digging In, Albuquerque Journal, 7777 Jefferson NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109, or at features@abqjournal.com.
