Fungus. Fungus. Fungus. Keep saying it for 60 seconds. By the time you get bored or distracted, you still will not have said “fungus” as many times as there are fungal species in the soil. Fungus fits into two very distinct categories, beneficial and non-beneficial. Interestingly enough though, both function in a similar manner with regards to reproduction and communication.

Communication? Yes. Fungi are living creatures and like all living creatures, fungi have a way of communicating certain needs bio mechanically. The easiest example of this is mycorrhizae. Mycorrhizal fungi ties roots to the soil structure and send messages in a symbiotic relationship to the rest of the food web. This fungus is also very fragile and needs a certain environment to grow. What destroys beneficial fungus will encourage non-beneficial to flourish.

Nitrogen will knock down populations of beneficial fungus nearly as fast as a fungicide and at the same time it will cause more surface dwelling fungus to grow rapidly. It is an interesting balance. Modern turf science wants us to juice plants to the maximum with fertilizer to push it to the limits. This model does not take into consideration any of the other creatures living in the soil. While you will get green grass, you will also get every other problem that goes along with a high salt, high analysis fertilizer program.

One of the primary roles of fungi in an ecosystem is to decompose organic compounds. Petroleum products and some pesticides (typical soil contaminants) are organic molecules (i.e. they are built on a carbon structure), and thereby present a potential carbon source for fungi. Hence, fungi have the potential to eradicate such pollutants from their environment; unless the chemicals prove toxic to the fungus. This biological degradation is a process known as bioremediation.

Non-beneficial fungus will have certain roles as well and when we’re done here, you may rethink whether or not they are actually negative. When fungus attacks a lawn, it is usually a perfect storm of issues that allows the infestation to propagate. Heat, thatch, moisture that is stuck in the root zone, compaction, and too much nitrogen, all of these factors contribute to having a growing environment for a fungus that will start to destroy a lawn.

But is it actually destroying the lawn? The industry would say “yes, absolutely,” but I think there’s more to it than just stopping a fungus with fungicide. When you look at the role of any organism, all species will have a fight or flight feature. I believe that fungus such as brown patch, summer patch, dollar spot, and even fairy ring have a role in balancing out the ecosystem in a lawn. Think about this: if fungi can communicate within the same species, can they also communicate with other closely related versions? What if mycorrhizae sent a message up to the surface that it was suffocating and could no longer support the plants? What if then, brown patch took over and knocked out the growing grass and ended the life cycle right there? Is this a way of signaling other plants such as weeds to come in and breakup the soil?

Again, our model comes down to building up when you knock down. The most fortunate thing we have going for us in our program us that our fertilizer will build up beneficial fungi so that when a fungicide is needed for control, the beneficial fungi will grow back quickly.

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