Despite the comparatively pretty name for a destructive fungus, dollar spot can look extremely unappealing, especially if it spreads across a wide patch of once-luscious lawn.
Appearing as pale, wet spots in your turf, normally between 1-6 inches in diameter, they glint in the sun and loosely resemble silver dollars nestled amongst the grass. Unfortunately, it only takes a closer look to realize you’re not magically growing money.
Rather than the silver coloring connoted by the name, if you examine the infected blades, you’ll find them more of a sickly butter-yellow ringed with a darker sienna. It starts in small spots on each blade and spreads until the full length is uniformly yellow. If you get up early in the day, you may even find delicate webs growing across the problem area. Many mistake them for cobwebs after spider activity during the night, but this web is actually a fungal mycelium.
As spots collide during the spreading process, they can amass into huge irregular patterns that don’t look too appealing, but dollar spot isn’t actually the most damaging fungus. Blighting the leaf tissue of turf, it leaves the roots and crowns completely unscathed. Even so, it’s an incredibly irritating and unsightly garden issue.
Another way to identify dollar spot is if the infected areas have sunken ever so slightly beneath the level of your healthy turf.
If you’ve got a dog, you’d be forgiven for giving them a stern talking to, as dollar spot looks exactly the same as when a pooch decides to pee on your lawn. Dog urine has high levels of nitrogen, and when it’s unleashed as a concentrated stream onto a single spot, it can dry grass into a straw-colored mess.
It might only be after the dollar spot has spread quite viciously that you’ll realize you’ve been reprimanding your poor pooch for no reason at all. If you do have a dog, and you’re unsure whether pale spots in your lawn are due to dollar spot or pee, look for the tell-tale sienna tinge. If the grass is just a dry yellow color, there’s a good chance your pup’s been peeing where they shouldn’t.