How to Manage Toadstools in the Lawn & Why They Happen

We have Becky in Massillon, who says, “I have in my yard clusters of brown. They’re not mushrooms. They’re toadstools I think but there’s maybe eight or ten of them in a cluster and I pull them out and there’s a divot in my yard.”

Okay, so a lot of times that just comes from spores that can lay dormant in the ground for decades. My recommendation is to try to remove them when you see them coming on. They are an environmental problem so they’ll present themselves when we’re really rainy and humid, which we have had this summer. There’s some years like last year where it was blazing hot and super dry, and you just won’t see that problem happen at that time of year. There isn’t anything spray wise or chemical wise that I’m aware of that’s designed just for them because they’re so uncommon. They’re not going to happen all the time.

And usually it’s more like acidic soil around the pine trees, so a lot of times using lime on the lawn will help neutralize it a little bit. Pine trees, when they drop their needles, they create acidity. The pH scale runs from 0 to 14, grass likes it right at the 7 neutral. And when the pine tree needles drop and you grind them up with the mower, they fall into the lawn, they start to decompose, they’ll lower that acidity level.

By adding a pelletized lime to the yard, it creates an environment where the grass grows thicker and stronger. A lot of times you won’t get the mushroom growth, so a good lawn fertilization and some lime is probably your best bet, and then hand removal if they do show up.

We have some around our pine tree. We were just looking at them where I left this morning. I get them underneath my oak trees at my house because all of the debris that an oak drops, and  they drop a lot of teeny tiny acorns, those get buried by the squirrels, and so that organic material, that rotting bark and other organic material creates an environment where the mushrooms do like to grow. Now usually with a mowing or two, they kind of go away on their own. But if you only have a few of them, hand remove them. When I hit them with my mower I spread those spores everywhere. But it’s really only an issue for a very short window of time. Usually like when the temperatures are getting a little bit cooler, it creates a good environment for them to grow. But it does actually kind of indicate too that you do have good soil. There is a lot of mycelia and a lot of good bacteria in that soil, so that’s not a bad sign.

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