Topic: stripes of death

[isbister]

A friend of mine is having lawn troubles, much browning taking place in patches and also, more alarmingly, in strips along the mower tracks. The mower has been checked and serviced and it's fine. The strips and patches could be a fungal disease like red thread but appear to me to be nothing more than thatch. This thatch is about 2 inches deep.
He's been employing a lawn treatment firm who have been feeding the grass 4 times a year for the last two years with, presumably, a very high nitrogen feed because the growth following their visits is incredibly rapid and lush.
My theory is that they are causing the problem in that the lush growth is a/ producing thatch and b/ stopping good circulation of air.
Does this make any sense? Has anyone else experienced problems with these lawn feeding firms.
ps I'm no lawn expert - it's far too complicated

[valmarg]

We had a problem last year of dead brown patches in the lawn July/August time when the weather was very dry.

We thought it was foxes (vixens in particular) weeing all over the lawn, and with the dry weather we had last year it caused the grass to scorch.

This year the lawn has been far too wet to have been affected.

valmarg

[ACE]

You should only feed and weed if the weather is on the damp side, if it has been done in this dry period we have just had, they are asking for trouble.

[isbister]

Thanks for replies. I described the problem to my mower man and he said "have you been using a lawn treatment company? Because they're ruining lawns all over the county and I'm getting the blame because people think it's the mowers fault". Seems that high nitrogen lawn feed = surge of lush fast growing grass = much thatch production. Mower can't cope and digs in exposing brown stems and hence stripes of death. The lawn treatment firm confirmed this when asked.
Solution short term - cut grass to 1 inch. Scarify. Going to look terrible all winter.
Long term - Bin lawn treatment firm. Fertilise sparingly using low nitrogen autumn feed whatever the season.