Question
QUESTION: What fungicide should I apply to the soil after cleaning to kill fungus. I intend to clear 12000 square feet of weedy lawn, cover the area with Dewitt Ultraweb anti-weed fabric. Landscaping is not my full time job. It may take me several months to clear the whole area.

ANSWER: Fungus is no big deal -- in fact, MOST Fungus is GOOD.  You don't need fungus killer because fungus does not grow in healthy Grass, any more than mildew will grow on wet towels if you hang them up.

If I was a Fungicide manufacturer, I would want to sell as many bottles of the stuff as possible.  If I could convince people to clean their refrigerators with it, if I could get people to shampoo their dogs with it, or wash dishes with it, I'd do that.  Remember how Arm & Hammer came up with this recommendation that you could air out your refrigerator with their Baking Soda?  Ingenius!  Sales shot up.  Now there's Arm & Hammer for laundry, for plumbing, for deodorizing the fridge and washing tiles in the bathroom.  Baking Soda isn't just for baking cakes anymore apparently.

Same with Fungicide.

If they could get there from here, they would.  It's what they're supposed to do.  Sell Fungicide.

And they have convinced people that using Fungicide is part of a good program of maintenance for your Lawn.  But it isn't.

You are new at this, and I expect you are going to read a lot of labels at a lot of stores, and follow their directions.  Remember that most of the country learned to grow Grass that way.  But the ones who REALLY know how to grow Grass -- Greenskeepers at the country club, professors of agriculture, soil scientists and some researchers -- know that in an age where you can clone sheep, switch genes to bloom a Blue Rose, and measure root exudates that repel alien species around the roots of many plants... we know Fungicides are BAD for Grass and Plants.

No Fungus?  You need no Fungicide.  Yes Fungus?  Odds are you STILL need no Fungicide -- you can wipe it out cheaper and easier with an IPM program.

Keep in touch.

THE LONG ISLAND GARDENER

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: What is an IPM program?

Answer
Ah!  What is an IPM program?  Glad you asked!

'Integrated Pest Management' is a method of killing destructive organisms -- Bugs, Fungi, Molds and Weeds -- with new techniques as scientists discover them.  Biological warfare.  Disease-resistant varieties.  Predatory insects.  Pesticides and Herbicides are used only as a last resort, ideally not at all, and on a limited basis.

In your particular case, you are probably figuring that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  That's great if you're a Fungicide producer.  You want to maximize sales.

But an incredible amount of new information has been running like a freight train out of agricultural research centers.  Some projects are looking for better ways to grow fruits and vegetables.  Some are trying to gene-splice different species to make them, say, bloom in Blue, or survive in drought, or survive frigid temps, or taste bad to insects that eat them.  There are now hundreds of scientific journals to record all this work, and lots of scientific symposiums to discuss it.

Along the way, they have learned a few things about Fungus on your Lawn.

First, we know that Fungicides involve a lot of collateral damage.  You probably never thought much about that.  Take Earthworms.  The University of Wisconsin-Madison piece about Earthworms on its website points out, 'Two groups of pesticides are extremely toxic to Earthworms and most other soil organisms -- fumigants, such as Chloropicrin, Dichloropropane and Methyl Bromide, and vermicides (designed intentionally to kill worms), such as Ammonium Sulphate, Lead Arsenate and Mercuric Chloride....This leaves Fungicides and Insecticides responsible for the most extensive pesticide impact on Earthworms.'

Why should you care about Earthworms?

'Comparative analyses of casts and surrounding soil have shown that casts contain five times more Nitrogen, seven times more Phosphorus, 11 times more Potassium, three times more exchangeable Magnesium, and one-and-one-half times more Calcium.'

Here's the essay online:

www.uwex.edu/ces/wihort/turf/Earthworms.htm

An IPM program would find other ways to handle a Fungus attack.

Which you do not have.

Now I have some more news for you.  And this is going to be a real surprise.

Using a Fungicide can GIVE your Lawn a Fungus disease.

Bet you never thought that could happen!

And this is SOLID SCIENCE. No Tarot Cards or Witchdoctors here.  No sireeee.  We have MIT, Cornell and Stanford scientists tackling this one.

Here's how garden writers Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis explain it in their book Teaming With Microbes:

'A large and diverse community controls troublemakers.  They compete with them for exudates and other nutrients, air, water, and even space.  If the Soil food web is a healthy one, this competition keeps the pathogens in check.  They may even be outcompeted to their death.'

And as far as Fungi, 'The webs that [beneficial] Fungi form around roots act as physical barriers to invasion and protect plants from pathogenic Fungi and Bacteria.  [Beneficial] Bacteria coat surfaces so thoroughly, there is no room for others to attach themselves.  If something impacts these Fungi or Bacteria and their numbers drop or they disappear, the plant can easily be attacked.'

This is what happens when Lawns are 'heavily managed', i.e., they are drenched and drowned, with the best of intentions, to keep them from getting sick.

MOST Fungi are GOOD for your Lawn and Garden.  MOST Bacteria, MOST Nematodes, MOST Insects are HELPFUL or non-destructive.  Figure that right now, all the Lawns in your neighborhood are covered with dozens of disease causing Fungal spores.  But there's no epidemic going around your local Grass.  Because most are managed so perfectly by nature that you don't even know they're there.  The trouble comes when people try to play interference and wipe out all potential diseases and insects, the way they would wipe out Smallpox.  Fungicides and Pesticides kill most of the Good and the Bad alike; with nothing to stop it, the small population of Bad erupt into a serious problem.  As the University of Wisconsin-Madison editors point out, 'This leaves Fungicides and Insecticides responsible for the most extensive pesticide impact on Earthworms.'

Here's another example.  Maybe it will apply to you at some point.  New construction Soil is where you usually find the worst Grubs problems.  The Topsoil is removed, leaving Subsoil with few nutrients, fairly devoid of any microbial life.  Renewing it means pouring Fungi and Bacteria back into it, revving it up with organic matter they can live off and decompose.  But if you just cover the Subsoil with Sod, and fertilize heavily, there is nothing to keep local Japanese and Asian Beetles from laying eggs safely all over your sterile, stripped real estate.  And then you get a Grubs attack.

Old houses with established plots rarely have trouble with Grubs.  The natural controls are already in place to protect them from the Beetles that lay Eggs that hatch Grubs.

I don't know if this makes no sense, or if it does, to you.  Fact is, you do not have a Fungus problem, there is no reason to Fungicide-treat your Garden, and in almost every case, where a Lawn is concerned, LESS IS MORE.

Thanks for writing.  Your followups welcome,

THE LONG ISLAND GARDENER