The disease take-all patch is reaching epidemic proportions in Augusta-area lawns.

The disease has been in St. Augustine lawns mostly for two or three years, but I have seen it increasing in centipede and zoysia. Bermuda seemed to be the only grass unaffected, until now: I saw last week in a pathology report from the University of Georgia where a Bermuda sample was infected with take-all.

Initial symptoms are circular to irregular straw-colored to light brown thinning patches anywhere from 6 inches to 3 feet in diameter in the turf. As the disease progresses, patches may come together, eventually killing large areas of the lawn. The patches can reappear in subsequent years, causing extensive damage to turf.

Symptoms are most prominent on lawns stressed by hot, dry weather like we've had since early June (and for the last two summers, for that matter).

Take-all patch is sometimes confused with brown/large patch because of similar symptoms. These two diseases can be distinguished from each other by pulling on a yellow or brown blade of grass. The blade infected with brown patch will give some resistance when pulled on, whereas the turf infected with take-all will easily pull from the ground.

Also, the stolon infected with brown patch will not be brown/black as with take-all patch. But even with these descriptions, it can be hard to tell the difference.

Integrated management is the best approach to preventing and controlling take-all patch.

Maintaining a pH below 6.5 will reduce the severity of the disease. If your soil pH is above 6.5, acidifying fertilizers such as ammonium sulfate can be used to lower it. This is why I say to never lime a lawn unless you have a soil test first.

Manganese deficiency also increases the severity of take-all, so supplements of this can be added. A good fertilizer with micronutrients will contain manganese.

Fungicides are available to battle this disease, but they have limited effectiveness during the summer. Research has shown that the only effective times to treat are in the fall and early spring.

Like most diseases, take-all patch is associated with stressed lawns. Management for this disease involves good cultural practices such as:

- Good surface and subsurface drainage. Core aerating a lawn in the spring can help with this.

- Water the grass only when it needs it and not on a regular schedule. And when you do water, do it deeply.

- Proper fertilization. This depends on the turfgrass species and site conditions: sunny or shady. Centipede, for example, should receive only one pound of nitrogen per growing season. Avoid heavy nitrogen applications in late summer or fall.

- Make sure your grass has adequate phosphorus and potassium, which can be determined with a soil test.

- Mowing at the proper height for your particular grass.

- Don't apply herbicide to damaged areas of the lawn.

- A professor at Texas A&M University, Dr. Phillip Colbaugh, has found that applying sphagnum peat moss as a topdressing can reduce symptoms of take-all patch. The recommendation is 3.8 cubic feet of sphagnum peat moss per 1,000 square feet of lawn.

- If fungicides are used, make the applications in the fall and early spring when they are most effective. For the fall application, treat about Oct. 1 and follow up with a treatment about 28 days later. Immunox Lawn Disease Control (myclobutanil), and Bayleton or Bayer Advanced Fungus Control for Lawns (triadimefon) are recommended.

Reach Sid Mullis, the director of the University of Georgia Extension Service Office in Richmond County, at (706) 821-2349 or smullis@uga.edu.