I didn't read the thread you posted, so sorry if these have already been mentioned.

1. Divide the 1" by two and irrigate 1/2 inch twice a week. So, you normally water for one hour, make it two times a week for half an hour each. You're still maintaining your 1" per week requirement, but modifying for climate conditions.

2. Around early September, dethatch so the grass doesn't go into winter with more than half an inch thatch layer.

3. If soil compaction is a problem, core aerate so it can breath and so water and nutrients can better penetrate. You can cheat by using a liquid aeration product like Nitron A-35

4. Mow the grass at about 2-2.5 inches when it gets late in the fall so the fungi don't have so much growth to feed on and colonize.

5. If you fertilize September and/or October, I'd recommend using Milorganite. It's both low nitrogen and slow release but works great. You'll love your lawn after using it.

6. For the winterizing application (last fert of the year), usually early-mid November, you can use a Scott's brand like their Winterizer or other, but apply it when you no longer have to mow the grass. It will still be growing and manufacturing food, but growth will have ceased above ground. Don't put it off for too long afterward.

Thanks Bestlawn for your usual help! I always appreciate getting your advice. I will certainly try your suggestions. A few things to mention...

1) Thatch and compression are not problems... the lawn is new and is only 3 years old.

2) Your fall advice is great... but may need to bump up the dates a bit. It's not uncommon to have snow on the ground by Halloween up here. Maybe do the 3rd fertilize in late August and the last for the winter in early October?

3) I will definitely try to use Milorganite. I may need to drive down the USA to pick some up (I'm 1 hour to the border). So to be clear I would use this as my 3rd fertilize I described above in late August?

4) Someone once mentioned cornmeal before snowfall... think that's an option?

Thanks again for the time you take to give advice... much appreciated. :)

You don't have to let your lawn go dormant to avoid fungal problems. What you want to do it provide the least amount of water that it needs to stay green. The soil should not have to stay consistently moist to keep the lawn green though. If you have a few hot spots that need additional water, just hand water those instead of watering the whole lawn extra.

For fertilizer, cornmeal would be fine as a replacement for milorganite.

You probably shouldn't try to bring fertilizer across the border anyway- especially in this political climate. They are pretty picky about what agricultural products you can import.

Oops, I didn't realize you are in Canada. That's what I get for not reading the other thread LOL. You can use any organic fertilizer your stores sell. There may be Ringer's Lawn Restore or Scott's has an organic variety on the market now. If it's easy to get your hands on alfalfa meal/pellets, soybean meal, feather meal they work well and are slow release. Anything protein based is fine. And as Bill stated, corn meal is fine, too. It's just not as much a fertilizer as it is an antifungal. So you'll want to just about double the 20 lbs/per sqft as suggested for preventive and curative measures.

I forgot all about corn meal. Good catch on that. Apply it now and once a month until snow no longer permits. When fertilizing, apply two weeks before or after the corn meal application.

I'm not really sure what you mean by 3rd fertilizer.
"Maybe do the 3rd fertilize in late August . . ."

Here are your fertilizing dates, modified for your area......
1. May, preferably mid May
2. mid August
3. mid September
4. mid-late October (after you no longer have to mow the grass)

You should only fertilize once in spring (1) and two or three times in fall. Depending on your personal preference, you can eliminate 2, 3, OR 4 or you can fertilize all three times - 2, 3, AND 4.

This is a site for UW-Extension lawn care tips, focussing on winterizing and 3 times to fertilize.
Never in April thru May which is when our growing season begins.
I see alot of people promoting the idea of spring fertilization.
Don't the stored nutrients from the winterizer actually do fine in the spring and the fertilizer at this point just grow thatch?

Here is a link that might be useful: UW Extension

Thanks again for all the comments. Just to give you a sense of what I'm up against attached are 2 pics. From the first picture you can tell that I need a new sprinkler becuase the round one I used missed spots (LOL)! I normally use my walking tractor sprinkler but didn't this time. The second pic shows the lawn baking on the south side of my home after being watered that very same day!

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I will call customs first before attempting to bring back Milorganite. I think bringing back 50kg would be fine... it's not like 1,000kg or anything crazy like that (famous last words)! :) But will check first before I do anything.

I also picked up 25 lbs of corn meal today at a health food store. I couldn't find any locally "not for human consumption". They thought I was nuts, but I guess that's the label that some of us lawn freaks have to live with to keep our lawns healthy. :) Thanks again.

I'm beginning to think it's not snow mold. Not right now. Each state university has a cooperative extension service. They have soil labs and plant pathology. Is there like it there in Winnipeg you can take samples for diagnosis?

Once I water those dark patches, though, the lawn typically bounces back nice and light emerald green colour. But I agree... something just doesn't seem right. It just doesn't seem robust to me. We do have a crop diagnostics lab for plant pathology lab at the univeristy of Manitoba and private soil labs that do testing. My total cost is about $40 for analysis of both so will definitely go for that.

There's also some spots on the lawn that had some heavy foot traffic and other spots that have been matted down with lawn mower wheels... they seem to have dried out and turned hay-like. When I look at the blades they do look a bit fungusy. I am still going to do the cornmeal this evening. There's 60% chance of rain tonight -- do you think I should wait a day or two?

One other thing I was wondering... what about option C above? Let the lawn go dormant and try to kill-off fungus. The city doesn't water the parkway behind (as you can see in the picture) and it always seems to bounce back really nice in the spring. Perhaps I should just resign myself to letting the lawn go fully dormant and hope for better next year....?

Thanks again for the advice... I'll post the results from the lab once I have them in the event it may help others on the board.

You resignation to let the grass go dormant can't be the solution since there is something else going on. Snow mold is not active this time of year. It wouldn't be causing these types of problems even though the disease exists. I think your effort at the moment would be to deal with the problem at hand. Resolution will likely solve both problems.

Nope, apply the corn meal today. That it will rain tonight is ideal to water it in. The wheel ruts can be fixed with a pitch fork preferably but a shovel will also work. Dig it into the soil about 5 inches or so and rock it back and forth. Don't raise or remove any earth, just rock to separate it. Do that all along the rut line.

Hi there... thanks again for the reply. Just to clarify... my original question was to ask if lessing the irrigation now would help with the snow mould for next spring. But I think in the process based upon what I've described and the pictures the feeling is that there's something the even looks awry now, too.

Also, by flattened mower spots I don't mean ruts but rather spots where the grass goes flat. It doesn't seem to want to stand back up, stays flat, and then dries out. Here are a couple of pics that kind of show this... The first shows the contract between the standing up (top) and flattened lawn (bottom). The second kinda shows what I mean by the lawnmower lines in the lawn.

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I also cut out my 6"x6" lawn sample for the pathology lab today (almost made me cry). Got a good piece with both good grass and dry / fungusy (?) grass too. Also applied my cornmeal and in the process noticed this... is it a mycelium? Note the spots on the web are the corn meal.

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Thanks a million again for the great insight... and will post pathology and soil results here when I get them. I owe you folks a beer if you ever come up this way. :)

maybe your lawn is simply dormant.

the mower tracks are in the grass, not the soil. dormant grass looks a lot like hay.
the lawn needs to come out of dormancy slowly, like at natures speed. cooler temps and rain in the fall green it up. well, til it freezes. ;)
unless you get snow in july, snow mold is not your problem, but u never know, this is Canada. :)

i like the corn meal in the webs! :)

It's either dollar spot or pythium. The cobwebs look like dollar spot. The earlier pics look like pythium. Closeups of the leaves would tell better, but it's great you're having it diagnosed.

Well the basic soil analysis is back already (see attached). Plant pathology still to come. Do you guys think anything stands out or looks awry on the report? The nitrogen is kind of baffling since I've always fertilized my lawn? Thanks..

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Your soil's PH is high. Do not lime. If you have been applying lime, then stop. Consider organic lawn maintenance practices for the best performing lawn. Compost and organic feeding with grains and legumes will move the PH of your soil back towards neutral. It is common for the N measurement on a soil test to be meaningless. It's usually not reported.

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic lawn FAQ

I asume they told you how much sulfur to add and at what intervals to bring pH down?

Nitrogen will almost always be low in soil tests. It's very transient and leaches out of the soil quickly.

No, they didn't tell me anything about how to rectify... just the lab results by email. Maybe something a bit more detailed will come in the snail mail. But if you have any suggestions please feel free to share! :)

I'd definitely like to move into organics if possible (not only better results IMO but also healthier for me and better for the enironment). My biggest factor is the time since I work such long hours... and I don't think there's anyone locally who does true organic lawn maintenance service.

Someone suggested I posty a few pics of the blades so here they are. Apologies for the fuzziness... my camera doesn't take good close-ups. Top is top of blade, and bottom is bottom. The last pic is some of the quack in my lawn... even the quack isn't holding up well against whatever this is...

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From the other thread, I see you're in Winnipeg, Manitoba. If memory serves, that's south central Canada. Is the pH usually that high in your area? I would think it would be neutral to low.

If the normal condition of your soil is low pH and the pH is high because of over liming, I would hesitate before adding sulfur. The pH will likely move lower anyway.

If your soil is naturally high in pH, it's very difficult to get much of a change in pH over a large area like a lawn using sulfur, anyway, so it is usually used on a more localized basis to correct chlorosis in individual plants. You may well see better results by adding as much organic matter as you can. The OM will help bring the pH closer to neutral, but it also acts as a buffering agent, so that high pH doesn't interfere with plants' ability to use nutrients.

If you have iron chlorosis now, adding iron isn't likely to help much unless you add EDDHA chelated iron. With a pH that high, iron chlorosis is more likely to be caused by the iron being in an unavailable state rather than being absent. Iron Sulfate won't help at all, and even EDTA chelated iron isn't likely to be very helpful.

Looks like pythium blight to me. We'll see what the test says. If it is pythium, let the lab make a recommendation for cure, but you might have to pay someone for fungicide application. Management practices as described above will also help.

Unfortunately I agree with the pythium assessment. Still no results back from the lab, but fits the description very well. Here's yet another picture... you can see the flattened geasy spots in the lawn that are infected. Looks like some fungicide, fall power raking, and overseeding are likely in my future. Too bad... just look at the rest of the lawn... that's the beautiful green I would have if this didn't happen. :(

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