# What's causing this damage?



## SteveB (Jul 13, 2018)

Yesterday I was working outside and discovered some damage to the turf in the sidewalk strips I renovated this fall with a mono-stand of Mazama KBG. There are some patches of turf where the grass is basically gone or partially uprooted.





In these areas of bare soil, there are numerous holes that I suspect are from earthworms. The weather has been relatively warm lately here in central Iowa, so I'm not surprised to see evidence of worm activity.

What animal do you think is causing this damage? I don't know if it's tearing the turf up in search of worms or eating the grass itself. It seems to be targeting thin areas where the grass hadn't established deep roots yet. It could be any number of critters, but my best guess is rabbits. I obviously can't repair the damage until spring. In the meantime, is there anything I can do to minimize further damage?


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I dont like the white fungus looking stuff on the left side of the second image. I cant see the holes from your image. It looks like what I see in a thaw/freeze cycle in the mulch area or really thin lawn ones.


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## SteveB (Jul 13, 2018)

g-man said:


> I dont like the white fungus looking stuff on the left side of the second image. I cant see the holes from your image. It looks like what I see in a thaw/freeze cycle in the mulch area or really thin lawn ones.


Sorry, the image quality suffered after resizing it. The white stuff was a wad of stringy plastic fiber fill or insulation that must have blown into the yard. I threw it away after taking the photo.

As you will see, there were a few areas that I had re-seeded that were still lagging behind as of early October. I'll have to see if the current problem spots match up to the thin spots in this picture. Maybe it is physical displacement of the immature gras plants by freeze/thaw cycles rather than animal activity.


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