Question
I was reading some past posts about fertilizing and fungus control for lawns.  You had suggested sugar for fert. and baking soda for fungicide.  

We have dollar spot and fading disease on our bermuda grass.  Also, we live in Georgia with high humidity and a steep front lawn.  Our soil is very fine, dense clay.  It isn't heavy and clumpy but it doesn't absorb water very well and on a steep slope it is hard to get a good 1-2" on water to absorb.

Can you please give me tips on maintaining an organic lawn and landscaped area?

Thanks,
Janice

Answer
Sugar is not an effective Soil amendment for Grass or anything else.  It MIGHT boost bacterial levels, and that would be good for plants that prefer Bacterially dominated Soils in acidic Soil.  Vegetable Gardens, Cut flowers, Grass all like the Nitrate kind of Nitrogen they get from your Sugared Soil.

But it's better to amend your Soil with LOTS of Organic Matter.  This would promote the higher levels of microbes that occur in your Soil, to solve something like a Fungus problem.

It's getting late here in NYC and I am doing my best to give you a thorough answer, but if you need more information, please let me know and I will expand on anything that looks interesting to you.

'Dollar Spot' -- a Fungus microbiologists call 'Sclerotinia homoeocarpa' -- is named after the size of the spots it makes on your Grass.  Here's what garden writer Jeff Lowenfels says in the book 'Teaming With Microbes' about your situation:

'Dollar Spot, one of the two most troublesome diseases of Golf Course Greens, can be caused by excessive Nitrates in chemical fertilizers.' (page 149)

Organic Lawns NEVER get Dollar Spot.

See, most people figure 'organic' Lawncare avoids Pesticides and Weedkillers, but they think it's O.K. to use chemical Fertilizers.  They can't see why something like Nitrogen Fertilizer should be a problem.  After all, Nitrogen is GOOD for Grass.  Nitrogen doesn't hurt anyone.  No one gets cancer from Nitrogen.  Nitrogen can't kill Weeds.  It won't cause Disease.  Birds don't die eating Earthworms that are tainted with Nitrogen.  Why isn't Pesticide-Free good enough?  What's NOT to like about chemical Nitrogen Fertilizers?

Picky, picky, picky.

Fact is, 'organic' does NOT stop with Pesticides and Weedkillers.  Why?  Because Chemical Fertilizers are all BY DEFINITION 'S-A-L-T-S'.

Here's what author Lowefels says about Chemical Fertilizers -- Urea, Ammonium Nitrate, Turfbuilder, Anhydrous Ammonia etc:

'Earthworms leave when Salts are applied; Salts are irritants, and the microbes responsible for worm digestion die if Fertilizers are ingested.  The Fungi that bind Soil aggregates are gone.  The Bacteria that bind the individual Soil particles into aggregates are gone.  The Lawn's Soils lose structure.  Slowly, they lose the ability to hold air and water.'

Then they get sick.

Lowefels calculates that 100 lbs Nitrogen Lawn Fertilizer poured on 1 Acre of Soil will WIPE OUT a healthy Soil foodweb.  NO PESTICIDES NEEDED!

Do you see where we're headed here, Janice?

Simply NOT putting down Fertilizers and Fungicides and Weedkillers, simply LEAVING THEM ALONE, allows your Lawn to fix itself.

Because the old, healthy Microbes, the Flora and Fauna that we cannot see but know are down there, will multiply and re-establish themselves.  And they will control your Dollar Spot.  Like it was never there.

Yep.  It's that simple.

BUT...

Your Sandy Soil will need help with this, unfortunately.  Amending it not with Lime but with ORGANIC MATTER will make your Microbes happy and build up a big, healthy population of anti-Sclerotinia troops in time for next year's Fourth of July BBQs.  Because building up your Soil with Organic Matter -- Compost, Humus, Aged Manure of any species (Rabbits, Horses, Cows, Chickens and all of the above) -- solves your Nitrogen and Potassium deficiencies that make Dollar Spot worse.

When people grow their Grass in poor Soil, then put down Scotts Turfbuilder, the excessive Nitrogen doses boost unhealthy tissue growth.  Grass grows thin and weak.  Odds of Fungus soar.

Dollar Spot has been treated successfully in NUMEROUS studies where the researchers applied organic fertilizers and composts to the sick Grass, and watched it get better.  In 1997 out came 'Effect of Nitrogen fertilizers on suppression of Dollar Spot Disease of Agrostis stolonifera L.'  In 1995, it was 'Microbial populations and suppression of Dollar Spot Disease in creeping Bentgrass with Inorganic and Organic amendments.'  Back in 1969, scientific journals published 'Influence of Nitrogen fertilizers on Washington creeping Bentgrass' and 'Incidence of Dollar Spot, Sclerotinia homoeocarpa, infection.'  And in 1989, 'Suppression of Dollar Spot with topdressings amended with composts and organic fertilizers'.

The USDA website article 'An Organic Cure for Turfgrass Disease?' reports on current research to cure Lawn Diseases sans Fungicides.  A USDA microbiologist, Robert Kremer, found that fields where crops were rotated, chemicals and tillage were minimal, and organic matter -- compost etc -- was added had the most weed-suppressing microbes.

Matthew Wood, a University of Missouri-Columbia student, zeroed in on a project to study Dollar Spot.

'For laboratory and greenhouse studies, the researchers locally obtained an EM liquid culture of Bacteria, Yeasts and Algae.  Wood then grew the mixture of microbes on Horse Manure, Brewery waste, Wheat Bran and Charcoal to make a material known in Japan as BOKASHI. He grew S. homoeocarpa on heat-sterilized millet seeds to produce an inoculum used to infect 4-week-old bentgrass seedlings growing on sand mixtures with and without Bokashi amendments...8 weeks after Bentgrass seeding, Sclerotinia had infected less than 1 percent of the turf in the pots that contained six parts sand to four parts EM-bokashi.  But in the control pots, containing only sand (90 percent) and peat (10 percent), 19 percent of the turf became infected.'  Findings were published in the Aug 2001 issue Agricultural Research:

www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/aug01/turf0801.htm

All of which adds up to the basic cure: Nothing.

Dollar Spot, like other Fungus diseases, rev up in Summer... IF you don't have the defenses in the Soil to stop it.  Dollar Spot and a whole Platoon of vicious Fungi are ALWAYS around us, waiting for that window of opportunity.

Did you know that?

The key is to keep the window closed.

Take your house, for example.  You've got Fungus flying around all over the place.  Some Fungus is GOOD, some Fungus is BAD, some Fungus we don't care what it does.  But you know it's there because if you leave a slice of bread out on the counter in the dark for a few days, it gets moldy.  Right?  If you throw a wet towel on the floor in the bathroom and leave it there, it gets moldy.  Keep your shoes on in the Summer, no socks, leather uppers, do that long enough and you have a foot Fungus.  Flood the basement and don't air it out, and in a few months you have mold all over.

Why?

Is it because you didn't spray Fungicide all over the house every day?

NO!

It's because you gave it that WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY, Janice.

LOCK the window.  Do not open.  Your Grass will be FINE!

If I don't shut up now, Janice, AllExperts will start charging me rent.  So let's recap:  Run out and pick up some rich Humus, aged Manure, Compost.  And start a Compost Pile.  You'll need it next Spring.  You can keep it outdoors and fill it up all winter.  With Thanksgiving around the Corner, and all those spent Halloween pumpkins just waiting to be tossed, you'll have that Compost bin filled in no time.  Let me know if you need instructions.

You also need a SOIL TEST, Janice.  Let me know if you need info on that.  Cornell does the best testing money can by and it will cost you less than a tank of gas.  I'd elaborate now, but I don't want to put you to sleep.  Just ask.

Tomorrow, if you have any questions, WRITE ME A NEW QUESTION.  My LONG answers really screw up their computers and the replies can be corrupted when they post, so instead of a followup, please remind me who you are and set up your next question.  I can access the old Q's and A's easily that way, and we can start fresh.

I am backed up from here to Kallamazoo with questions and I don't like to cut corners on these answers, as you can see.  I hope it was worth waiting for.  Thanks for writing,

THE LONG ISLAND GARDENER