While we love spring and enjoy being outdoors this time of year, cool temperatures and extra rainfall create the perfect conditions for fungal diseases in your lawn. Healthy vigorous lawns always have a better chance of standing up to pests and diseases; even lawns that are well cared for can succumb to disease when conditions are right. Take-All Root Rot (TARR) is an aggressive fungal disease that is infecting lawns all across North Texas.
Take All Root Rot (TARR) is caused by a fungus caused by Gaeumannomyces graminis var. graminis. If TARR is left unchecked, it can quickly kill off large parts of your lawn, or even your entire lawn. St. Augustine, Bermudagrass, Zoysiagrass or Centipedegrass are all susceptible to Take-All Root Rot. Cool-season grasses such as Fescue and Rye are suceptible as well.
If you have St. Augustine, Bermudagrass, Zoysiagrass or Centipedegrass in your landscape, your lawn could be susceptible to Take-All Root Rot. Cool-season grasses such as Fescue and Rye are also susceptible. TARR is caused by a fungus caused by Gaeumannomyces graminis var. graminis. If TARR is left unchecked, it can quickly kill off large parts of your lawn, or even your entire lawn.
Grass blades in this TARR infected lawn are beginning to yellow.
When your lawn is suffering from TARR, it will be slow to emerge in the spring. Young leaf blades often turn chlorotic (yellow or very pale green). These symptoms are often mistaken for general chlorosis (a nutrient deficiency) or chinch bug damage. The main difference to note is that TARR will yellow your lawn in much less-uniform patches. The leaf blades will yellow first then fade to brown as large patches up to several feet across die off in an irregular pattern (as opposed to defined or circular patches). The leaf blades do not pull away from the stolon, like they will with Brown Patch.The roots will also be dark brown as they begin to rot away. If you notice these symptoms, please call a professional lawn care maintenance team to properly diagnose and offer a treatment plan.
TARR appears irregularly throughout the lawn.
Could you have Take-All Root Rot? We list the symptoms:
TARR is very difficult to treat. Simply removing the lawn and re-sodding with the same grass won’t solve the problem; your new sod will simply become re-infected. While there are some chemical fungicides that can be applied to a TARR infected lawn, they often are not very effective at controlling the fungus. Treatment will require patience and diligence.
The first step in dealing with TARR is to make sure you’re applying good maintenance practices in your lawn and landscape. Healthy microbial growth in the soil is paramount to preventing and managing this disease.
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