Rust and red thread seem to be two lawn diseases not affected by corn meal; however, if you are going to use a fungicide like baking soda, then it would be helpful to reestablish the beneficial microbes. A light dusting of compost would work, too.

If you sprayed shampoo on it, would the rust wash down off the plants and onto the soil?

>>If you sprayed shampoo on it, would the rust wash down off the plants and onto the soil?

Unfortunately, no, the stuff adheres to the grass blades. However, you'd wash off most of the spores, which would reduce the orange paw thing going on--until the fungi produce more spores. Figure a day or three for that, depending on conditions.

A spray of shampoo will kill some rust, however, as it's also a sodium salt. It depends on what you use, hence the recommendation for sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Rust hates the high pH and the free-floating sodium ions, whereas they're in too limited a supply to bother the grass unless sodium levels are already absolutely unreal.

A little update.

I opted to put down another round of 32-0-4 on 8-2, 22 days after an application of 26-0-2 to no avail.

Still have some serious rust and it appears to really be affecting the fine fescue, not sure if the lack of rain and heat has knocked it out or the rust. I do not water my back yard due to the cost of water where I am.

Here is a picture of my mower following the mowing of my backyard, around 5,000 sq ft. I have a willow tree that brushed some of it off, but you get the idea.

Morpheus, is this a bad case, lol

I am unsure if I want to go the route of baking soda or put down a fungicide, or just let it run it's course.

OK, that is a LOT of rust. I'd be quite tempted to use a weak fungicide at this point.

Well Morpheus, I last mowed on Saturday and the above picture was the result. Today I mowed again, dropped it to 3" from 3.5" and have hardly any rust showing on the mower. Not sure if it was the act of mowing so soon again, the fertilizer kicking in, and/or dropping the heighth but I seem to be clear of rust now.

Wait. :-) When you mowed it lower, you knocked off the rustier tips. It'll regrow.

On the up side, with cooling weather and faster grass growth, rust will tend to become less of a problem.

Well well morpheus, looks like it's nearly the identical time this year that i've got some major rust again. My mower looks nearly identical to how it did two years ago.

Not sure why my area has such issues with rust, my father in law across town has it just as bad and does not lawn care.

Any clue what the environmental factor is?

Looking through my notes from previous years, insect activity always picks up around this time and I suspect flying ants to begin coming up from the yard in the next 5-10 days as they have the previous years. Could insect activity cause this?

I'm truly baffled by the cause of all this rust.

https://extension.illinois.edu/turf/rustlawn.cfm

Unfortunately insects has no impact if rust will occur or not. What has the weather in your area been like recently, are you watering into the evening hours? Rust is common this time of year, can be treatable with application of nitrogen which will help the grass growth through it along with change in weather. If it is as bad as the picture above from years ago, I'd wonder if an application of a fungicide would help out.

I didn't think so but that is the only constant I could think of.

Weather has been typical of the season, hot days, cooler nights with little to no rain and I do not water my backyard. We do have quite a bit of dew on the grass every morning as well.

Adding nitrogen has yielded nothing previous years, cutting shorter has helped but i'm already at 3". Grass is fescue, TTTF, KBG, RYE, Fine Fescue.

I realize Fungicide is always an answer but hope to avoid by figuring out the root cause.