Question
I live in lower south eastern Michigan I am not sure what type of grass i have, i overseed with Kentucky bluegrass and in late summer I started developing a orange dust on my lawn, I didn't think much of it, now it has spread to almost the entire back yard in patches (3/4 acre). When I look at an individual blade of grass it is covered with orange or rust colored spots. When walked in it coats my shoes. How do I treat this problem? Is it bad for my dog? Any help you can provide would be great.
    Thank you,


Answer
Hi Dennis;
Sounds like a fungus (mold) to me too.
Treat it like any other fungus, with a good fungicide (I liked funginex when I used chemicals) or baking soda disolved in water.
Tell you what, Clorox kills all those molds that grow in houses, that companies have sprung up to charge an arm and a leg to get rid of. The propaganda is they are harmful. Of course they are!!!! Fungus and mold gets in your lungs and can cause all sorth of health problems, even death.
We have been using Clorox for ages to get rid of them.
I am sure that Clorox would kill the fungus in your yard, but if you are an organic gardener and have lawn criters that eat your bad bugs, I am sure the clorox would harm them too. I am sure it would be bad for dogs and cats, but so is that fungus. I will do the same to an animal's lungs that it will do to humans.
I am not sure what it would do to the grass. About 1 cup clorox to 4 or 5 parts water should kill the mold. Saturate the grass well with that.
I would go with the Funginex before3 i tried Clorox though.
As I said, if you are an organic gardener, soaking the grass and ground with baking soda would probably do it. You may have to apply more than one treatment, since it has gotten such a hold.
I found a website that has pictures of lawn diseases, and saw a coupe that sound like what yoy describe. One is "Rust"If I copy and paste it here, the pictures will not show. On the site they are in color, so I will give you the site address.It lists the diseases, what causes them, how they occur, etc, but no solutions. You are supposed to hire their company to get rid of it.
But it is a fungus, so treat with a fingucide.
Go to
www.grassrootslawncare.com./lawnprob.html
Give a look at the pics under diseases and see if that looks like what you have.
If that doesn't do it, write me again, and i will search some more.
Charlotte