Just had part of the lawn replanted because of a new road going in. They used Kentucky Bluegrass. It was coming in really good, even in the hot July-Aug weather. I made the mistake of mowing it when it was tall and wet. Now it's very orange and after walking through it, my shoes look like they were eating doritos.
I fertilized yesterday. I don't know if that's good to do or not at this point. What else can I do? -thanx.
Just maintain proper lawn care.
When they paved my street, the reseeded area came up alright at first and then went to rust. They had 'restored' the area with what looked like scrapings from the old road with a dusting of topsoil. I gave it a couple of extra light applications of fertilizer and a top-dressing of compost and it turned out OK.
This was in the Sept. 8 Landscape Alert newsletter from the MSU extension service:
Rusty sneakers One of the dangers of autumn is turning those new, white school sneakers to orange after walking through the lawn. After what was a sporadically sultry summer, the cool temperatures in autumn often result in rust showing up on lawns. Rust is very diverse; there is stem rust, crown rust, leaf rust and stripe rust. Don?t worry about what rust might be contaminating your lawn, as a general rule in almost all cases rust is considered a cosmetic turfgrass disease that although it may discolor the turf, it will not result in wide-spread death of the turfgrass. If you find yourself inundated with a bad case of rust, make sure to keep up on your mowing, and if you haven?t applied any fertilizer in a while, consider a fertilizer application to stimulate turf growth, which will help diminish the impact of the rust.
THANX! Glad to hear it's mostly a cosmetic thing.
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