Brown patches in lawn

Does anyone know why ugly brown patches have started to appear in my grass? It is not because of lack of water as we have a sprinkler system.

sounds like grubs.
You can pick up a patch of your lawn to see what you can find under the turf and if you have grubs, you'll see them, little white-ish wormy things with golden brown heads, usually curled up, they are ravenous little beasts and can destroy grass quickly.

janiejoy...i was moving some plants around and saw some things that look like you just described. they were all in one general area, so i dug it up and killed all the ones i could find. where did they come from, and how do you get rid of them, if i didn't get them all? i haven't seen any damage to my flowers in the bed, but a plant that i bought at the nursery which died pretty much right away was in that spot...maybe they came in on her? my flower beds are all newly built raised beds with store-bought soils. if i missed a few, do you think they're gonna multiply and destroy that bed???

Those white things are grub worms, the larvae of June bugs. I don't know how to get rid of them except by hand and throw them to the chickens! *grin* But I think there is something you can get at the store for them. There might even be an organic cure, but I have no idea.

If you don't find any of them, Oompaul, cut the bottom out of a coffee can and stick it in the ground at the edge of one of those spots. Fill it with water and look for little black bugs floating ~ those would be chinch bugs. I don't know how to get rid of those, either. :(

If no white grubs and no black bugs, then it's probably a fungus. I DO know how to get rid of that! :) There are lots of fungicides for lawn funguses available at the garden center, but the only fungicide I use on anything is 3 Tbsp. of baking soda and a scant teaspoon of dish soap in a gallon of water. Spray on the spots pretty heavily ~ keep it shaken up as the baking soda likes to settle to the bottom. You'll have to lay off the watering in those spots for a while to not wash off the baking soda. Also, funguses thrive in moist conditions, so letting those spots dry out will hasten the baking soda's killing process.

Good luck!

Oh, Meiyu ~ I forgot to tell you that they won't multiply unless more June bugs find your flowerbeds and think they are just the perfect place for their babies. They probably did come in on your plant. :(

BTW, here's some info on chinch bugs and grub worms/June bugs:
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&q=chinch+bugs
http://ag.arizona.edu/urbanipm/insects/beetles/junebeetles.html
http://www.focusedxterm.com/turf.htm
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=getting+rid+of+grubs+in+the+lawn&sa=N&tab=iw

oompaul, on the last link that wingnut listed, look at the one, getting rid of white... it has a place down there that names 3 lawn medicines.
thanks wingnut. since they're not making any babies or dividing like cells underground, i just dug them out of my flower bed and killed them all, then put the flowers back in. it was kinda fun getting my frustrations out.

I sprinkle diazanon granuels on the spot at water it down, has worked so far.

Whereabouts do you live, oompaul? In FL, brown patches in the lawn can mean chinch bugs and mole crickets. The brown patches will spread fairly quickly as these guys munch on the roots of the grass. I think the coffee can trick works for these guys, too. Chinch bugs are little--less than 1/8" long, and usually brownish with a dark head if memory serves. Mole crickets are really ugly--they look like deformed crickets and are a tannish-brown color instead of the typical deep brown or black.

I live in Ohio. My lawn has had exactly the same problem this year. But as happened last year, it is now starting to recover, but still looks awful. I have never found any bugs so it must be fungus. Any advice is welcome and greatly appreciated.

You might take a picture and a sample of the turf in to the local County Extension Agency to see if someone can tell you what your problem is. They are usually a wealth of knowledge on local pests and problems and how to solve them.

I did send in a sample to Ohio State University, but they couldn't see any causes for the problem.

Is your neighbor's dog peeing there all the time maybe??? That's about the only other thing I can think of that would kill of a spot in the lawn.

No, these are huge brown patches. Too big for any dog.

I have a huge brown patch of lawn where one of my dogs pee's everyday. The dog doesnt go in the same exact place just the same area and it is a large patch of brown grass.

I have two possibilities to offer.

First, I know you said that the cooperative extension didn't find a cause, but it sounds to me like brown patch - a fungal disease. That would explain the seasonal coming and going. As soon as you notice it next summer, try treating it with a fungicide like Maneb. If you think it might be a fungus, of course.

Second, could it be that the soil under the patches has gotten compacted? Compaction could prevent the absorbtion of water. Or (here I go again with fungi), it may be that a subterranean fungus is making the soil hydrophobic. The fungus itself isn't attacking the grass - it's just preventing water from penetrating. If you think this might be the case, try aerating the soil, breaking it up with a fork.

I offer these suggestions from experience - I was the turf manager for an athletic field for almost twelve years.

8^)

hey, know what? i just found out that my brown patch is caused by a lack of topsoil over the slab of limestone in my front yard!!! easy solution...add dirt...haha! two years to figure this one out, but maybe that's all it is; we'll see!