Thank you Morph ;) So if you were me would you use another application of the Bayer? I however do have Banner here the liquid since dollar spot is a foliar disease, I am just nervous to use it on the front lawn Lol Idk why, I feel safer with a granular though I know spraying is def a better option once you do see it coming up on the lawn... Not sure what to do, as you know since you're in PA we are getting tons of rain but with cooler temps, so It's not humid which is a good thing for now..

That's what happens when you're more concerned with selling overpriced urea and charcoal for $65 to unsuspecting lawn care beginners than actually providing good quality recommendations to your viewers.

It is well known that azoxystrobin does not treat dollar spot. Some products even say so on the label, while other azoxystrobin products simply do not list it as a controlled disease. You need something else, like propiconazole.

For foliar diseases it is best to use a foliar product. Bayer Fungus Control is a RTS which contains propiconazole. Or, you could buy propiconazole off Amazon and spray it yourself with a pump or hose end sprayer.

Edit: I just saw in your last post you said have Banner. That's perfect, you should use it. Obviously try to stick with the labelled rate best you can, but even if you make a mistake and go double or triple it won't hurt your grass.

Lawniac, I am nervous to spray it on the front lawn Lol, I never used a spray always granular and I know it's a foliar disease , not sure how much to put and do I water it in after??? I don't see any brown yet, but w all this rain I am sure its going to happen but I put Bayer down a few weeks ago ..so we shall see

You would not water in a foliar. The grass takes it in through the leaves immediately so it's much faster than granular because it gets absorbed quickly right there where the disease is. Spraying is not hard but you do need a sprayer, and you do need to calibrate. If you're not comfortable with that I would suggest maybe just using a hose-end bottle of Bayer Fungus Control from your local home improvement store - hook it up to your hose and spray its contents evenly across your entire lawn. It won't hurt your lawn I promise.Once sprayed it need to sit on the grass for at least 4 hours preferably longer so it can get absorbed.

+1 Lawniac. Spraying's not hard, just follow the instructions and test spray first if you aren't familiar. If it says 1 pint per thousand square feet, put a pint of water in your sprayer bottle (use food coloring if you want so you can see how much you have) and practice spraying it over a thousand square feet (a square about 32 feet on a side). And so on.

Most mixes for the homeowner are made so that they're pretty easy for the homeowner to apply as well, so complicated application rates won't exist and there's a good window of acceptable app rates as well.

Isn't true chemical fungicide kills the bad "and" good fungi?

Yes but...and there's always a but... :-)

If you have a disease, there's no real choice, of course. The soil biology just has to take one for the team until the problem abates. Preventatives are almost always gentler than curatives--or, the reason why I use a grub preventative to avoid a grub curative like I had to use a few years ago...

Nowadays, I've used corn meal as a preventative, but it's extremely gentle and weak, and more of a suggestion than a prevention. It has no impact on good fungi. The impact on disease fungi is modest at best and it definitely won't function as a curative at all.

Even surface-applied fungicides may have little to no impact on soil fungi as they're diluted as they wash into the soil. Or they may have a lot of impact. One has to do the research on the fungicide to see.

The most effective home remedy (1 tbsp baking soda per gallon water with a bit of soap to stick) is also very wide-spectrum and does damage fungi at the soil surface and a bit below. They can't stand the sodium and pH change, it's like pouring salt on a slug.

As with any other pesticide, the watch-words are always, "Use sparingly and only as necessary."

In Lisa's case, she has dollar spot issues, so it's absolutely necessary, and the weather has held soaking wet and absolutely perfect for fungal diseases.

Isn't true chemical fungicide kills the bad "and" good fungi?

Absolutely true. But look at it this way, if you have a bad infection you take the antibiotics and worry about the bacteria in your digestive system later.

Exactly. You might use a preventative if you suspect you're going to have a problem, or conditions are just right. Or if you historically have always had a problem.

But you wouldn't use a (much stronger) curative if you didn't have the disease, any more than you'd take a course of antibiotics if you weren't sick.

So in other words, don’t be scared to use chemical fungicide if the lawn disease is visible and at its peak

It's important to understand that fungicide doesn't actually "heal" grass, it only suppresses the fungus growth and stops it from doing further damage - temporarily. Damaged tissue remains damaged and the grass will have to put energy into growing new leaves so it can feed itself. Combine that with heat and drought stress and you end up with heavy losses if the disease is allowed to progress.

So, I wouldn't suggest you wait until it's at its peak. It's better to catch it in the the early stages. Or, like morph said, if you know you have issues every year, do preventive.

The other takeaway is, you can't just apply fungicide and stop once it looks better. You're guaranteed recurrence. You have to keep the fungicide going until conditions are no longer favorable to fungus growth (or in other words it cools off).

Ok I have a ? for Morph or Lawniac, You said if I SEE dollar spot spots coming to spray them, do I have to mix the Propiconizale sp? in the water at the rate it says too for 1.000 square feet even though I am only doing a few spots? or you suggest I hit the whole yard IF I start to see dollar spot coming???? this is why I Like granular Lol ahhhhh

Doesn't fungus spread?

That's why I hit the whole yard.

I like granular it's easier and also I don't have a sprayer.

Lawniac n Morph,

what do you use for preventive?

for 1.000 square feet even though I am only doing a few spots?

Do the whole yard, don't mess around with spot spraying. It's also a good idea to bag the clippings if there's disease.

what do you use for preventive?

I use a mix of propiconazole and azoxystrobin applied every two weeks through summer. I live in NC where disease pressure is high - summer is very hot and humid. You have to rotate or mix fungicides with different modes of action because fungus can build resistance. Azoxystrobin in particular - it's a great fungicide but the risk of fungus developing resistance is very high.

Azoxystrobin can be bought by the quart/gallon as a liquid under various brand names or in granular form as Scotts DiseaseEx at any big home improvement store. Propiconazole can also be bought in liquid form or in granular form as Bayer Fungus Control at any home improvement store. The liquids end up being much much cheaper per application but require a higher upfront investment.

No arguments there. I'm in a different locale with different and fairly strong grasses, so my preventatives are different, but...with dollar spot, let's not fool around, yes?

Hi, I just spoke to the local Sod farm and asked them what they thought about the fungicides and he said what they do there is MINIMAL fungicides when they have a problem they just push it out with Nitrogen he said, and Core Aerating is key he said which I did last Fall..and will do again this fall or next spring or both idk, but now Idk what to do if I should even put a second preventive fungus control down????

Did they specifically say dollar spot or just "a problem?" Some problems are easy to push out with nitrogen. Others absolutely flourish on fresh, juicy, fast-growing grass and that's exactly the wrong response (although with some fungicides, it might work).

Not being a business, you're also not there every day and every hour to monitor the sod for developing or worsening issues and responding before things have a chance to get bad. They can do that.

And no, core aeration really isn't the key, although for a sod farm, it's probably critical (they run machinery over their ground quite a lot--you don't). Uncompacted soil certainly helps, but you can do that just by maintaining your soil profile appropriately. You do that with your organics, which bring in worms, which do the aeration for you. :-)

Idk if I should put another application of fungicide at the beginning of June, it's been in the 80's here all weekend and sunny NO rain Lol Its never a happy medium spring, from cold and rainy to Hot Hot Hot and sunny , now I have to worry about getting enough water on my lawn Lol, when does it end???

September.

:)

If you're lucky. :-)

I'd say if you don't see any indications of a problem, hold off! There's no sense throwing another fungicide at what, at the moment, isn't an issue. Particularly when the weather just changed over to be incompatible with fungal growth.

Now might be the time for a very gentle preventative like corn meal or cracked corn (which is one of those "usually doesn't work but absolutely cannot cause any problems" kind of things). It takes a long time to build up a base background of trichoderma fungi (little vampire fungi that eat disease fungi for lunch...no, seriously), but once you do, you have fewer problems.

The issue being that if you do have to use the fungicides again (and if you gotta, you gotta), they wipe out the trichoderma as well, which are all at the surface and entirely vulnerable.

Morph-

Not to hijack Lisa's thread, but:

The last couple of years fungus destroyed my lawn by mid June. This year, I began preventative fungicide in April, alternating Scotts Disease Ex with Bayer every two weeks. I've done 4 apps so far. I plan to continue into August, and hopefully I'll be out of the woods by then.

Joe, it sounds a little over-aggressive, but if that's what the label recommends as the short cycle (and given the damage I've seen in your lawn over the years), I can't say I'm going to object to it. Next year though, I might stand down to a less frequent schedule closer to the maximum window (there's no sense bathing a property in fungicide if you don't have to), or stepping back to use once or twice with the preventative and count on it working without too much of a repeat.

If your weather shifts to very dry, you can cautiously back off, however. Fungi just aren't going to dominate on a dry or dormant lawn...assuming you allow dormancy (I do).