Imagine the spring thaw when all the snow has melted, only to find your grass matted with a crusty cobweb. Your lawn may have whole sections covered in this cobweb material, known as snow mold, where the circular shapes grow to 6”-12” in diameter.
There are two types of snow mold: Pink and gray snow molds. Typically, you’ll see gray snow mold in cool season lawns. Pink snow mold can appear in both cool- and warm-season turfgrasses.
In this blog post, you’ll learn more about snow mold, including
- The Root Causes of Snow Mold on Your Lawn
- Say Goodbye to Snow Mold Hassles
- Prevent Future Snow Mold Problems with This Checklist
- Enjoy a Healthy Spring Lawn with No Snow Mold.
The Root Causes of Snow Mold on Your Lawn
Snow mold is a fungal disease that already lives in your lawn by the time winter arrives. Unfortunately, snow mold is caused by cultural management rather than a natural infection.
Pink snow mold, called Microdochium Patch, affects both grass types, including warm-season lawns with Bermudagrass. Gray snow mold only affects cool-season grasses.
You can prevent snow mold on your lawn. For example, here is the list of how your cool-season lawn becomes susceptible to developing the snow mold pathogen:
- Adding a high-nitrogen fertilizer in the fall
- Neglecting to mow your lawn until it stops growing in November
- Too much foot traffic causing soil compaction
- Poor yard drainage.
Read more: What Is Snow Mold (And How to Get Rid of It)
Say Goodbye to Snow Mold Hassles
Fortunately, you can remove snow mold from your lawn.
Most turfgrass areas will recover from snow mold. In the meantime, here are some helpful tips for removing snow mold from your lawn:
Use a yard sweeper to effortlessly remove mycelium (the fungal growth) on the grass or manually rake up the fungi. Raking the infected lawn helps dry the grass and prevent more fungal growth.
Allow the grass to recover on its own for a few weeks. As long as the turfgrass’s crown wasn’t damaged, the turfgrass should recover.
If your turfgrass doesn’t recover, you can reseed the area, but don’t apply pre-emergent weed control because it won’t germinate.
Read more: 11 Ways to Stay Safe While Clearing Off Snow & Ice
Prevent Future Snow Mold Problems with This Checklist
While you can’t control an existing fungus in your lawn this winter, you can prevent snow mold problems in the future.
Here are eight practical tips for preventing future snow mold problems:
- Don’t use a heavy nitrogen fertilizer in the fall because the grass is moving toward dormancy and doesn’t need a large dose. A small dose of nitrogen in winter fertilizer (winterizer) will help your lawn develop strong root systems.
- Keep mowing your lawn until a freeze stops the turfgrass from growing. Your last mow should take off 2”. The shorter fall cut prevents snow mold from forming because the grass won’t fold over itself under the snow.
- Ensure that thatch isn’t more than ½” thick. If there’s too much thatch in your lawn, use a lawn dethatcher attachment hooked up to your garden tractor to comb up the thatch so your turfgrass can breathe easier. Thick thatch holds in snow mold pathogens.
- Rake up leaves before winter so they don’t trap moisture, leading to snow mold.
- Improve drainage in your yard so water doesn’t pool over the winter.
- Aerate your lawn if the soil is compacted.
- Don’t allow snow to pile up on your lawn. It acts as an insulator and adds more moisture as it melts. Use a snow blower to evenly spread the snow rather than allowing it to accumulate.
- Use a deicer on your walkways and driveway to encourage faster melting. Our lawn spreaders double as ice melt spreaders during the winter.
Enjoy a Healthy Spring Lawn with No Snow Mold
Once spring is in full gear, your grass should return thick and healthy—even if it was covered in snow mold.
Continue practicing smart lawn care by following these helpful tips:
- Clean up fall debris, including trash, sticks, nuts, fruits, leaves
- Test and fix your soil
- Add balanced fertilizer at the right time of year
- Apply pre-emergent weed control in early spring unless you’re growing grass
- Ensure your mower blades are sharp
- Take off only a 1/3 of the top of your grass during the summer
- Control weeds and pests
- Repair damaged lawns
- Complete aeration and overseeding for cool-season grasses in the fall and warm-season lawns in the spring.
Shop Brinly for Your Snow Mold Prevention Attachments
Explore our lawn and garden products to prevent snow mold in your yard. Our lawn care attachments include
- Spike and plug aerators
- Lawn dethatchers
- Lawn sweepers
- Fertilizer spreaders.
Shop now to buy your next Brinly Lawn Care Attachments at one of these fine retailers.
Do you have questions about your Brinly Lawn Care and Garden Attachments? Use our contact form to reach out to customer service today.
Sources:
Ext.VT.edu, Snow Mold (pdf).
GreenviewFertilizer.com, Recovering from Snow Mold Damage.
RuralMutual.org, Solutions for Preventing Snow Buildup.
Spring-Green.com, Snow Mold: What It Is and How to Treat It.
YardandGarden.Extension.IAState.edu, Snow Mold.
