Brown spots in the winter - What are they?

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

It’s winter and it has probably snowed by now.  We aren’t really thinking of our lawn, particularly if it is covered by snow.  If your lawn is visible and you are perhaps putting away the Christmas lights or picking up the Sunday paper you may have noticed a number of different brown spots on your lawn.  What are these lawns spots?

If your lawn has a general, brown-yellow haze to it, it could be from a lack of proper fertilizer applications.  If you had applied some Jonathan Green Winter Survival Fall Fertilizer this fall your lawn would most likely hold some desirable green color.  During the cold weather the lawn tends to go into a dormancy stage to survive the winter and it may turn off color a bit as it stores energy to make it through the winter cold.  To have a great looking lawn throughout the winter, I would suggest a Winter Survival Fall Fertilizer application, even better two applications, one in early fall and one after Halloween. 

You also may have brown spots if you have any warm season grasses in your lawn.  For example zoyziagrass or bermudagrass are warm season grasses.  Both of these grasses go totally dormant in cold weather so you are looking at a ‘straw’ colored lawn until the spring.  I am sure that you have seen a lawn like this since it stands out so significantly.  You cannot do much to get rid of this brown look unless you kill off this grass and reseed with cool season grasses such as perennial ryegrass, kentucky bluegrass, tall and/or fine fescues.

Some brown spots are also a result of salt or ice melt applications, which make their way onto your lawn.  Some ice melt ingredients are also fertilizer ingredients but if you make repeated applications or apply too much on one spot of the lawn, the lawn will turn brown and will probably be dead and not green back up in the spring.  You would need to reseed for example with Jonathan Green’s Black Beauty Mixture.  You can use an application of gypsum to these salt damaged areas to help reduce the salt content in the soil so when you reseed the new seed has a better chance of survival.

If you see a large brown spot which is kind of matted down perhaps you did not clean up all of your leaves from the fall.  If you missed a spot remove the leaves in order to get the area ready for reseeding in the spring with Jonathan Green Show Lawn Mixture. 

Sometimes you will find patches of brown, which are actually dead crabgrass.  Crabgrass is an annul and will die when the first frost arrives in the fall. Is very easy to find crabgrass at this time in your lawn since it sticks out like a sore thumb with the blades spreading out like a spider web.  The best way to get rid of these unsightly brown spots is to follow the Jonathan Green Annual Lawn Care Program that will thicken up your desirable turf and also prevent crabgrass from grown and germinating.  This would be addressed in the spring.

If you have had some snow cover and it has now melted you may find some strange burrowing along the top of the ground.  This is a vole that burrows along in a strange winding river pattern looking for food.  They can survive below the snow.  To get rid of these guys you have to follow a lawn program that rids your property of the food source for voles or use an animal repellent.  This can be difficult since animals go where they want to for food then they are desperate.  Reseeding these areas in the spring is your best bet. 

Snow can also bring on fungus, pink or gray snow mold.  Obviously pink snow mold has pink tint to it and gray snow mold looks grayer in color.  This is usually a bigger problem on high maintenance turf like golf course.  If you get these I would ignore them and reseed with a Jonathan Green grass seed mixture in the spring if the turf does not come back in those areas.

Good luck and think spring!

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