Has anyone ever dealt with Pythium blight on your lawn?

Question

I believe that my lawn has a Pythium Blight. It has had it for several seasons now. It makes it very difficult to reseed, since this blight really affects seedlings. I am doing every natural thing I can and have read everything about it on the net. Unfortunately, I have no control over Mother Nature, who insists on having a week of straight rain, which just makes the blight take over the whole lawn. I am looking for someone who has dealt with this and has had some success. Please, no quotes from the web...I have read it all!

Answer 1

I planted my lawn 9 years ago and had problems with Pythium. It's a very fast-spreading disease and you can see the fungal threads early in the morning before the sun comes out. The fungal threads appear to be very similar to tiny spider webs on your lawn. The infected grass will gradually wilt and die out, leaving patches of dead grass.

As you problably already know, Pythium is a fungus that spreads by water and since it sounds as if you're experiencing lots of rain, this doesn't help matters for you.

I treated my lawn with a natural-occuring beneficial fungi called: Trichoderma Harzianum and haven't had a single incidence of Pythium in the 9 years since applying the product . Trichoderma Harzianum was developed by a professor out of Harvard University and it's a very good biological fungicide that controls several other plant pathogens. Trichoderma will live in the soil and continue to protect your plants as long as you maintain adequate soil moisture.

Here's a website where you can purchase a product where it contains Trichoderma: http://www.ipmofalaska.com/files/trichoderma.html

If you can find a fungicide at your local nursery that controls Pythium, I'd recommend you use it prior to apply the Trichoderma. Usually the fungicides will control the existing Pythium and the Trichoderma will do a good job preventing the fungus to become re-established.

I'd recommend waiting for the rains to stop, apply the product and wait for the beneficial fungus to become established before re-seeding over those bare spots. Make sure you get good coverage when applying the product. I'm sure the directions for application are on the container but if you have any further problems, I'd be more than happy to answer your questions directly.

Good Luck!