PESTICIDES AND FERTILIZERS: Combating Diseases

There are a number of phone calls lawn care professionals don’t like to receive. One of them sounds like this: “I know your technician was just here the other day, but today I noticed some strange patches in my front lawn.”
 
Like most lawn care operators (LCOs), Dick Bare, the president of Arbornomics has heard that one before. In Norcross, Ga., where he operates, the diagnosis may be brown patch on fescue, dollar spot on Bermudagrass or pythium blight on either.
 
Because diseases prevail when the host (the type of turf), pathogen (the organism that causes the disease) and environment are just right, some parts of the country expect disease outbreaks during the hot summer months of July and August.
 
Developing a good understanding for diseases, why they happen and how to prevent them from taking places is the best thing a lawn care professional can to when creating an effective disease control strategy, says Joe Rimelspach of The Ohio State University’s Department of Plant Pathology.
 
“Customers want answers for brown grass, and it’s so easy to say ‘It’s a disease, let’s spray something.’ But if you don’t really know what you’re working with, you won’t be able to get rid of the problem and have a happy customer,” he says.
 
First and foremost, LCOs should educate themselves on diseases that afflict turfgrass varieties in their regions in addition to working with their extension offices for proper diagnosis (see the “Common Turf Diseases and Control Methods” chart on pages 80-81 for more information).

DIFFERENT APPROACHES. Once a lawn care company is confident in its diagnosis abilities, it needs to define its approach to disease control.
 
“The name of the game is prevention,” says Rimelspach, adding that once a disease appears there is no cure, only suppression. “If you’re already seeing gray leaf spot, it’s too late. You can treat it, but you can’t actually cure it. If a customer has a history of a disease, that’s where you can capitalize on the preventive services.”
 
Many lawn care companies sell preventive fungicide programs, Rimelspach says. These are most successful if the region is prone to a certain disease or if clients’ lawns have experienced diseases before.
 
TruGreen, for example, offers a preventive fungicide program in parts of the Southeast and in Texas where brown patch is “inevitable,” says Bobby Joyner, director of technical services. It includes a few fungicide applications that start in late May.
 
Other firms prefer a cultural approach to preventive disease control. “We like to grow healthy grass, not just control pest problems,” says Chris Brown, owner and director of franchise development for Teed & Brown, a lawn care company in Norwalk, Conn., noting this approach includes building a lawn with the right fertility, pH level and disease-resistant turf types.
 
At Teed & Brown, after diagnosing a disease, the technician typically will recommend that a customer “rides out the summer.” Often, the problem is too much thatch, an improper pH level and a disease-susceptible turf variety. To prevent the disease from returning the following year, Teed & Brown will aerate, topdress and overseed the lawn with a more resistant seed variety. “That same disease problem will almost never come back,” he says.
 
Still, some clients won’t stand for any disease in their lawns and prefer fungicide treatments. Lawn & Landscape numbers show fungicide applications are growing. About 28 percent of firms offered them in 2007 – up from 25 percent in 2006. And product expenditures grew, too, with the average firm spending $2,361 on fungicides in 2007 – up 46 percent from the previous year.
 
Arbornomics’ Bare knows many of his clients can be meticulous – they want to know that no issue in their lawn has been overlooked and many of them will consider mid-season fungicide applications. As such, if his technicians identify brown patch, for example, they call their clients on the spot and offer to make an application right then and there. Bare says treating on the spot is preferable to making a return visit – less windshield time equals more profit. Such applications, depending size and product, hover in the $75 range. That price can be a lot to swallow, even for high-end clients who need to be reminded that disease control isn’t covered by their current program.
 
When clients are unhappy they have to pay for disease control and other “extras,” Bare compares his firm’s service to the dentist. “If you need a filling because you have a cavity, the dentist don’t just give that away, does he?” Bare says. “No, you have to pay for it.”
 
Bare sets his fungicide prices by keeping chemical costs at 20 percent of the price and “back figuring” it from there. “It can be profitable, but it just depends on the account,” he says.

Managing customers’ expectations and reminding them what their program covers is one of the most difficult aspects of disease control, Joyner says. “They assumed that signing up for a lawn service will eliminate any problems they have,” he says. “You need to make sure up front you can deliver what they expect.” He recommends leaving notes about practices that will discourage disease growth.

“It’s pretty critical you do this on a preventive basis,” Joyner says. “Once diseases are there you may stop them from spreading, but the customer isn’t going to be satisfied with that. You have to be able to predict and prevent it from happening.” LL