Question
Hello,

My name is Greg and I live in Minnesota.  My lawn started out the year great and now has developed quite a few randomly place burnt spots in a couple areas of the yard.  Is there a reason why there would be little burnt spots, along with some larger areas when the rest of the lawn is perfectly green?  Is there a way to bring these back to life?

Answer
Hi Greg;
By burnt, i am assuming yu mean brown spots.
Sounds like you may have brown patch fungus.
If the spots are black, that is a fungus.
Kill the fungus and the grass will come back.
a good organic fungicide is baking soda disolved in water and sprayed on the grass, and ground. Saturate it well.
Corn meal is another good organic fungicide. Get agricultural corn meal at a nursery.
i think maybe I am putting more baking soda than I need to, but I put about a half cup of baking soda to a 2 gallon sprayer of water.
You can also mix it in a bucket and just flood the area.
It would be better to use your sprayer, and spray those spots well, the give a pretty good spray to the rest of the yard, in case some of the little spores are there, ready to ruin new spots.
If it is brown patch, or another fungus, when you pukk up a handful, it should come right up, with no roots attached, and may feel kind of slimy.
  There could be grubs under there causing this. If the grass doesn't pull up very easily, then suspect grubs.
Turn over a spade of soil, and see if you see as many as 6 to 8 grubs in there ( or a lot of the little buggers).
Hope this helps you.
I encourage you to get on an organic program. when you get a good organic program going, you just don't get these problems.
If you would like more info about organics, write me, I amm very glad to share what I have learned.
Charlotte