Anyone know what causes “fairy rings” on the lawn?
Thanks BUT why should the one on my lawn be a perfect circle, 15 feet in diameter? Kinda spooky don’t you think?
The bad news is that it is almost impossible to get rid of fairy rings , as this article explains :- http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles1000/fairy_rings.asp
This is only an educated guess, mind you, but if the cause of the fungal infection is something like a buried tree stump, the organic material released as it decays will gradually diffuse through the soil, especially when it rains in a more or less circular distribution with the highest concentration of organic material in the center. If the fungi are very sensitive to the levels of the organic material they feed on, then a ring growth will form, because outside the ring, there aren’t enough nutrients, and inside the ring there is too much.
The spore of the fungi that started your fairy ring started growing in the middle of your fairy ring. It spreads out from there over time radially. You will only get a perfect circle if your lawn soil is homogenous and does not have many rocks and stones in it. So, in a sense, your fairy ring is giving your lawn the thumbs up for being well laid.
The circular nature of the fairy ring is a simple consequence of fungal growth. Most probably, single spore landed on your lawn and germinated, producing a fungal body called a mycelium. Since conditions were favorable, the mycelium continued to grow outwards from the point of germination at a more or less constant rate, resulting in a circular structure. Fruiting bodies (i.e., mushrooms) are only produced at the edge of the mycelium, resulting in a ring.
Must type faster…
As noted, above, the rings are simply the pattern of growth. They begin as a single tiny patch, then expand outward as the fungus puts out spores in the adjacent soil while abandoning the soil behind it in the center of the ring. They seem to appear as a circle because we generally don’t notice the initial small round patch before it begins to expand outward in a ring.
From Rayne Man’s link:
This surprised me, as we used to sell Benomyl to fight fairy rings. However, it seems that DuPont asked the EPA to let them discontinue manufacture (for “business” reasons) and that no one has come up with a replacement. (The WHO lists Benomyl as a low toxicity product and I have not yet discovered the reason that DuPont dropped it product.)
I will note that the stuff was extremely expensive-- in 1975 it was $20.00 per pound and covered less than 100 square feet of lawn.
The note about the absence of chemical control refers to the UK. Things might be different in the US . It depends what the regulations are concerning the control and use of these substances.
We all agree to agree that it’s fungus. The Fairys’ press agent will surely get a raise for that. 