Rust Mold Affects Ohio Lawns

After mowing his lawn last week, Larry Kleve noticed a red powdery substance on his shoes and on his lawnmower. It made him worry.

“You see this red stuff and there is a refinery close by. … I thought a factory was spewing out the stuff,” said Kleve, 74, of Canton, Ohio. “But you couldn’t see anything on the streets or driveways.”

Kleve called the city health department and an investigator came out and told him it wasn’t industrial pollution but rust mold – a harmless fungus that appears every year.

Experts say lawns across Ohio are seeing a major outbreak of the mold this year.

“We get rust mold every year,” said Mike Boehm, associate professor of plant pathology at Ohio State University. “The public really only notices it every 10 years or so when we have an unusually severe epidemic.”

“When it happens your white shoes turn orange, your kids turn orange, your dog turns orange,” he said. “People get scared – thinking this is some kind of covert terrorist attack – and start calling.”

Boehm said environmental conditions are to blame for this year’s infestation.

“We have seen rust pretty much all summer from June on, but we really got hammered hard the first week of August,” he said. “High temperatures stress out the grass and make it more susceptible to infection.”

Stark County received so many complaints about the rust mold that they city of Canton issued an alert to ease citizens’ concerns, said Gus Dria, a staff field inspector in the air pollution control division of the Canton Health Department. “We have been getting calls from people saying, ‘I have this stuff all over. What is it? Why is it here’” Dria said. “People see dust and they automatically think industry.”

Boehm said that during the Great Depression there was a national effort to get rid of the rust mold, which was damaging wheat crops. The government hired people to try to eradicate the wild berry plant on which the mold lives for part of its life cycle.

“They didn’t understand the mold,” Boehm said. “They said, ‘Let’s go out and kill the alternative host.’”

Boehm said rust mold is hard to control because the fungus produces a red spore that can be blown via jet streams for thousands of miles. He said the mold doesn’t harm Ohio’s wheat crops because Ohio farmers usually harvest earlier in the season.

Perennial rye grass, common in newer housing developments, is very susceptible to rust mold.

“If you get a lawn and it is 100 percent rye grass you can either live with the rust or convert your lawn to Kentucky bluegrass,” Boehm said.

However, lawn care enthusiasts should not be alarmed, he said. “Mother nature is going to take its course,” Boehm said. “Once we get into the cooler nighttime temperatures and better growing conditions, the rust will disappear.”

Source: Associated Press