The word “mold” makes people nervous. If it’s on your bread, you throw it away. If it’s in your house, you panic.
What happens when snow creates mold on your lawn?
Is snow mold harmful? How do you treat snow mold on grass?
Let’s learn more about snow mold lawn disease, including:
- What is Snow Mold?
- What Does Snow Mold on Grass Look Like?
- What Causes Snow Mold Lawn Disease?
- Does Snow Mold Spread?
- How to Help Prevent Snow Mold Fungus
- What to Do About Snow Mold Lawn Disease
Snow mold isn’t harmful as long as you rake out the affected areas so sunlight and air can reach your grass. No fungicide is needed, and your grass will green back up once you rake out the affected areas.
Thankfully, you can take steps to prevent snow mold fungus and keep it from spreading in the first place.
What is Snow Mold?
Snow mold is a common cold-weather lawn disease in Idaho lawns and any cool-season turfgrass.
It thrives in damp, cool conditions under snow or ice cover.
The longer your lawn is covered with snow, the better the chance snow mold will develop.
Is snow mold harmful? Happily, snow mold sounds worse than it is. The damage to your lawn isn’t usually severe.
When the snow melts, the snow mold dies. But as it sits on top of your grass, looking gross, it’s also blocking essential sunlight from reaching your lawn. That keeps it from producing chlorophyll, which it needs to green up.
So you’ll need to take some action. More on that in a bit.
What Does Snow Mold on Grass Look Like?
Snow mold usually appears as tan or bleached grass patches with a gray or pink hue.
Your grass will look matted, brittle or straw-like. Gray snow mold patches can grow up to 3 feet wide.
What Causes Snow Mold Lawn Disease?
This cold weather lawn disease forms from a combination of
cool temperatures and moisture. It also likes long grass blades. The longer the grass, the more likely it is to be matted and retain moisture.
Snow mold loves both those things. It often forms beneath big piles of snow that are slow to melt.
Gray Snow Mold Disease Vs Pink Snow Mold
There are two types of snow mold — gray and pink.
Gray snow mold is the less serious of the two and only affects the grass blades.
The pink variety sounds prettier, right? But it’s worse, damaging the roots of your lawn and causing more serious damage.
Luckily, gray snow mold is the more common fungus here in Idaho Falls and Boise.
The bad news? Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass are most susceptible to snow mold, the two most popular grasses here in Idaho.
Lots of Idaho Falls and Boise yards have a blend of the two seeds. Understanding your lawn composition is critical in identifying and treating lawn diseases like snow mold.
Does Your Yard Face North? South? It Makes a Difference
Which way your property faces affects your snow mold fungus potential.
Lawn damage from snow mold is most likely to occur on the north side of properties — or in shady areas that don’t get much direct sunlight.
South-facing yards are less likely to get hit, as prolonged sunlight encourages snowmelt and helps to dry things out before mold can take hold.
Does Snow Mold Disease Spread?
Sorry, yes. That means it can end up damaging large areas of your lawn.
When snow covers your lawn for weeks on end, it can be impossible to tell what's happening below.
Watch for signs of snow mold in early spring so you can deal with it early enough to recover when the growing season resumes.
How to Help Prevent Snow Mold Disease?
Fortunately, the fight against snow mold isn't just a matter of recovery. You can take some proactive steps in fall to help limit the conditions that make snow mold likely.
Check out a few snow mold fungus prevention tips:
Fall Fertilizer Can Help Prevent Winter Lawn Disease
Fertilizing your lawn in the fall is essential for a lot of reasons, but one of the many benefits is this last nutrition boost before winter can help strengthen your lawn so it can better stand up to diseases like snow mold.
Apply a balanced fertilizer in the fall to promote healthy growth and improve your lawn's resistance to diseases like snow mold.
But wait until after your lawn has gone dormant.
If you fertilize while your lawn is still growing, the feeding will encourage a boost of new growth, especially if you use a fertilizer high in nitrogen. And remember, snow mold fungus loves long grass.
Late Fall Mowing: The One Time to Mow Short
If you’ve hung out with us here, you know the benefits of mowing your lawn tall.
Taller grass is healthier, so you want to keep it taller for the growing season, never cutting off more than a third of the grass blade at any one time.
Cutting your grass too short stresses it, making it more susceptible to damage from insects and summer lawn diseases.
Mowing tall also helps your grass develop a deeper root system. That leads to a fuller, greener lawn.
But if you have trouble with snow mold fungus, you’ll want to keep your last fall mowing of the season short to help prevent snow mold from developing.
Mow your lawn at about two inches for this last cut of the season. Shorter grass blades are less likely to attract snow mold lawn disease.
Also, remove the grass clippings — even if you usually leave them to decompose. Clippings encourage moisture and damp conditions that cause snow mold to thrive.
Which leads us to…
Get Rid of Fall Leaves and Debris to Help Prevent Snow Mold Fungus
Be sure to rake all the fallen leaves and other debris from your lawn in the fall, before winter sets in.
Leaves trap moisture — and remember how much snow mold loves moisture. It sets up the perfect environment for the fungus to take hold.
Get Rid of Thatch with Aeration
Too much thatch is never good for your lawn. Thatch is a layer of dead grass and stems between your grass blades and the soil. And snow mold loves it.
How to get rid of thatch? Aeration.
Aerating your lawn encourages air movement, which lessens the likelihood that snow mold fungus will take hold.
Lawn aeration removes plugs from the thatch, helping it decompose and allowing oxygen, nutrients, and moisture to reach the roots.
Aeration uses a machine to pull out tiny cores of soil from your lawn, allowing beneficial water and oxygen to get to the roots.
When your lawn can’t absorb water or nutrients, it struggles and becomes susceptible to weeds and diseases like snow mold.
Don’t Let Snow Pile In One Spot
The longer snow lingers on your lawn, the better chance you’ll have snow mold lawn disease. Snow that hangs around and melts slowly keeps grass wet, cool, and soggy, encouraging mold.
Big piles of snow can take weeks to melt, giving snow mold plenty of time to take hold.
What can you do? Head outside with a shovel and break up big piles of snow, spreading it around in a thinner layer so it melts faster.
What to Do About Snow Mold Lawn Disease
You might assume a fungicide is the answer. Fungicides kill or
prevent the growth of fungi and their spores and are sometimes used to control lawn fungi.
But fungicides aren’t effective for snow mold control. They don’t prevent the mold from damaging the grass.
Here's what you can do in spring, once snow mold has taken hold.
Gently Rake Out the Snow Mold Fungus
If you notice snow mold on your lawn, gently rake out the infected turf. Note the word “gently.” Your grass is still fragile from its winter slumber.
Raking loosens up the lawn, letting more air circulate through your lawn and helping to dry it out. That also allows sunlight to reach the grass.
Mother Nature is your helper here — let the sun and fresh air dry out the mold.
Will grass come back after snow mold? Yes — you should notice your lawn greening up within a few weeks.
If you ignore the snow mold fungus and let it sit there, your grass can die from a lack of sunlight and air.
You Might Need to Reseed
Once you rake out the snow mold, there might be damage to repair.
Once the temperature warms up, loosen the soil, add topsoil to level out any low spots, and plant grass seed to fill in any bare area.
How a Lawn Care Program Can Help Prevent Snow Mold Lawn Disease
Lawn fungus hates a healthy lawn.
A well-fed and maintained lawn can stand up to attack better than one hungry and stressed by drought.
Do your part by establishing healthy turf, including proper fertilizing, watering, and mowing. Don’t water every day, especially in the fall, as it gets closer to the snow mold season. Water less often, for longer periods.
Keep your grass thick, lush, and healthy with a lawn care service annual maintenance program for healthy, strong roots.
Recover from Winter Lawn Fungus with Help From Lawn Buddies
If you want simple, hassle-free lawn care and landscaping services in Boise and Idaho Falls that offer quality core lawn care services for a healthy, impressive lawn, it doesn’t get easier than Lawn Buddies.
No stressing about which complicated combination of lawn care services will get you beautiful dark green grass.
You don’t have time to fuss with all that. Give yourself a break.
Welcome to one premium, six-visit lawn care program that includes everything your lawn needs to grow healthy and green.
Fertilizer, weed treatments, and grub control, all wrapped up in six visits, each perfectly timed throughout the season, so your grass is green and strong and resists weeds and lawn diseases like snow mold fungus.
We’ve got your back.
Got a few minutes? That’s all you need to get started. Just fill out the form on this page, call us at (208) 656-9131 or read more about our services. Then, you can kick back and relax in your healthy, thriving yard.
Image Sources | Gray Snow Mold, Pink Snow Mold
