Over Watering a Lawn

It happens a few dozen times a year: we get a call from a new customer asking if we can diagnose a problem that they’ve had in their lawn for some time now, and they have been unable to fix it. Sometimes, even other professional lawn care companies are unable to fix the problem! This issue is almost always Necrotic Ring Spot (NRS). NRS is a soil borne fungus that develops in lawns. Almost every lawn has Necrotic Ring spots spores in it, but NRS will only develop and thrive under ideal conditions. NRS thrives in a lawn that is over-watered, with a lack of microbial activity, or a dead soil. Necrotic Ring Spot can sometimes be hard to identify in its early stages, but can soon be spotted by its telltale irregular or circular patches that are straw colored or grey.

The Culprit

Over-watering! 100% of the time, Necrotic Ring Spot is caused by excessive watering. Let’s think of some possible scenarios. Maybe your sprinkler system overlaps with your neighbor’s sprinkler system, and one section of your lawn is getting double the amount of water that it should. Or maybe you thought your lawn was browning out because it wasn’t getting enough water, so you set the sprinkler system to run every day… for several months. Maybe there is a drainage issue in your lawn and the watering tends to pool in one section of the lawn, leaving that area extra soggy. Or… maybe there is a mysterious water monster that sneaks into your yard at night and floods your lawn. Who knows? Totally plausible. The fact is, NRS only shows up in a lawn when the lawn is not drying out enough between waterings. The water replaces the air in the soil, and the living microorganisms in the soil cannot survive, creating a dead soil that is susceptible to the fungus taking over. Now what?

Fix your habits, fix your NRS!

Fixing Necrotic Ring Spot doesn’t happen overnight, but by correcting a few bad habits, it can be done in a few months to a year! Make sure you fix your watering, first and foremost. Organo-Lawn offers sprinkler system audits to dial in your watering according to the 1-2-3-2-1 lawn watering technique. This technique allows for the lawn to dry out between each watering day, which is a crucial part of proper watering. After we fix the problem of the over-watering, whatever it may have been from, we need to get the soil healthy again! If you are in the Boulder or Fort Collins area, we will get you on a full season lawn care program to promote a healthy soil, including organic fertilization, aeration, and Humate soil conditioner applications. One important thing to note is that we do NOT recommend putting down fungicides to treat your Necrotic Ring Spot. While these applications can kill the fungus, they will also kill the beneficial microbes in the soil, and the cause of the problem has not gone away (over-watering) so the fungus will just come back. For more information, you can read more about Necrotic Ring Spot here: Click here