The recent round of springlike days has been a welcome relief from winter, but as the snow recedes, many lawns are showing the scars of a tough winter: gray and pink patches and fuzzy mold-like growth. These are symptoms and signs of a lawn disease called snow mold.

According to Jeff Fowler, Penn State Extension turf-grass educator, snow mold is a fungal disease that occurs during the winter and/or late spring under snow cover. Typically, there are two snow mold diseases that affect lawns in Pennsylvania: gray snow mold and pink snow mold.

Snow mold is commonly found in the areas of greatest snow accumulation, such as along driveways and sidewalks, or over the brink of a hill where snow drifts might have accumulated. The most notable symptoms are gray or pink crusted areas of grass in which blades are dead, bleached and matted together. These matted areas range from several inches to several feet across.

Some lawns have more snow mold than others, and this is because of several factors, including the duration of snow cover (shaded lawn areas usually have more disease than open, sunny areas), the type of grass in the lawn (some species and cultivars of lawn grasses are more susceptible to snow mold than others) and management (lush, over-fertilized lawns in poorly-drained and compacted soils tend to show more damage than well-managed lawns and soils).

Once the snow melts and the causal fungus is exposed to sunlight, the disease usually does not progress further. Thus, there is no reason for costly treatments of fungicides. In most instances, the turf will recover when your grass starts to green later in the spring.

For particularly hard hit areas, some overseeding might be required, but make sure you give the grass a chance to recover before rushing into a major renovation job. To improve the appearance of the lawn, you might want to rake the affected areas and break up the crusted, matted leaves. Although this practice won't hasten recovery very much, it should reduce the patchiness of the lawn. If you didn't fertilize last fall, a light application of a nitrogen-containing fertilizer will help with recovery.

Fruit tree pruning meeting slated for Wednesday

Plan to meet at The Apple Castle, 277 Route 18, New Wilmington at 4 p.m. Wednesday for a demonstration of proper fruit tree pruning, led by Eric Oesterling, Westmoreland County horticulture educator, and Lyle Johnston of The Apple Castle.

Call the Lawrence County Cooperative Extension Office at 724-654-8370 by Tuesday to register for the meeting. There will be a charge of $5 per person, payable at the Lawrence County Extension Office or at the meeting.

This material is submitted by Donna Zang, extension director, and the staff of the Penn State Extension office at the Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center complex.