How to Treat Fungus and Especially Brown Patch in St. Augustine Grass
Brown Patch and Gray Leaf Spot are invading lawns all across the Houston area. You can prevent it with the Nitro Phos products we sell and if you’re already affected, you can treat it with those products too.
Call Houston Grass South at 281-431-7441. In this video, Houston Grass South Owner Michael Romine talks about how to treat fungus in sod, and in particular he talks about brown patch in St. Augustine grass. At the time of this video, we didn’t sell lawn chemicals, but we do now. Come by our office to pick up Nitro Phos fungicides like Eagle Turf and PCNB that work very well to eliminate brown patch and gray leaf spot.
Michael grew up in the grass business and the grass sod he sells comes from his family’s farm in Bay City, TX. The Romine family knows what it takes to grow top-quality sod and that’s what they do for every piece and pallet of grass they produce. Quality makes a difference in the look of your project a month from now and five years from now. Get quality grass sod at a great price from Houston Grass South!
Here’s a summary of the video on how to treat fungus in general and brown patch in particular:
How to treat fungus in sod: That’s a very broad question. There are a lot of different types of fungus. I would say that in St. Augustine, the one that is the most prevalent, that everybody sees, is what we called brown patch.
Those are the brown, normally circles, that come up in your yard. Usually the transition times of year when we get into the cooler nights, it’s still warmer days; late September or early October here along the Texas gulf coast. You start to see the brown circles. They normally start in shady, moist, and sometimes low areas of the yard. In your swales, the lowest part of your swales in your yard, that’s where they start. In my yard, up next to your flower beds that get watered a little bit more frequently. That’s normally where those brown patches will start.
There are lots of things out there that you can put out. Home Depot, Lowe’s, and the hardware stores sell things by Scott’s that list brown patch in particular on their label as what they’ll treat. However, they only stop those areas from spreading; they do not reverse those brown circles.
We now carry fungicides from Nitro Phos that are very effective in eliminating brown patch. Stop by our office in Arcola to pick up what you need.
The thing about brown patche is it doesn’t actually kill the grass. It does make it look ugly, but if you watch an untreated circle as it spreads, it spreads for awhile. The leaves are dying on the outer edges of the circle, but if you look in the middle of the circle, normally, good green grass is coming back up in the middle of that. It’s not very pretty to look at, but it does not kill the grass.
There are other types of fungi and viruses in St. Augustine. The SAD, St. Augustine Decline, and the take-all patch; some of those are fungi, some of them are viruses and whatnot. Those would take a little more time to explain.
Houston Grass South is located on the south side of Houston outside Beltway 8, in Arcola, TX. We’re a few miles east of Sienna Plantation and just off Highway 6 on McKeever Road. You can pick up grass sod pieces and pallets at our office or we can deliver your sod to your project area in Metro Houston.
Call us at 281-431-7441 or request a quote with our quote form. For more information on treating brown patch, please checkout our other video. The Texas A&M Aggie Turfgrass program website has photos and information about the insects and the weeds that affect Texas lawns.
Related Articles about How to Treat Fungus and Brown Patch
- Zoysia Grass Maintenance
- Nitro Phos Products at Houston Grass South
- Gray Leaf Spot in New Lawns
- Gray Leaf Spot in Established Lawns
