WHAT IS BROWN PATCH?
Brown Patch is a lawn condition that is the result of a fungus infection. The visible signs of Brown Patch do not appear until about a week after the damage to the turf has actually taken place. Brown Patch looks like brown areas of dead or dying grass that appear in roughly circular areas. Since many of the circles may overlap, just look for curved edges and not actual circles. Other possible problems that could cause similar symptoms include chinch bugs or other fungal diseases. If left untreated, the fungus will spread to wider areas in your lawn and into your neighbor’s lawn also. On warm season turf grasses, the disease is characterized by at least two different types of symptoms. The most common is a circular pattern of brown grass with a yellowish ring (smoke ring) of wilted grass on the perimeter of the diseased area. The leaves can be easily pulled from the stolons with the smoke ring because the fungus destroys the tissue at the base of the leaf.
