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Pink and Grey Snow Mold
Pink and Grey Snow Mold
In my last blog post, I wrote about Snow Mold. I hadn’t really seen it show up yet when I wrote the blog, but within this past week, the disease has really started to show up. I was recently looking around my lawn, as most of the snow had melted and I found a good deal of both Pink and Grey Snow Mold occurring on my lawn at the same time. The temperatures had risen to the low 50s and the snow was quickly melting—two conditions that promote development of the disease.
In these pictures, you can see the strands of mycelium growing across the top of the turf. Again, it is usually not a serious disease, and it had completely dried out by Saturday. After winter, the grass was a little matted down, so I took a flexible rake and broke up the matted patches of grass. I did not want to rake too vigorously, as the ground was still wet and I did not want to damage the good grass.
Pink and grey snow mold is not just showing up in the northern states, however. I received the picture below from our franchise in Opelika, AL of a Bermudagrass lawn that had developed Pink Snow Mold. Actually, on warm season grasses, the disease has a much fancier name: Microdichium Patch. They have had cooler, wet weather in the South, which brought out the disease. Snow cover is not required for Snow Mold to develop. It can develop during cool, cloudy, and wet conditions, too.
Although this picture does not show the individual spots up close, snow mold is causing the lighter colored patches in the turf. But if you have matted grass after winter, know that it will recover, especially if the lawn is lightly raked.
For those of us in the North, we hope that the snow has ended for the year. We at Spring-Green are looking forward to begin servicing the lawns in our areas very soon, but we have to wait until the ground thaws. Watch for us in your neighborhood in the upcoming weeks!