Mini crop circles?

[jim_mich]

Brown spots keep appearing in my lawn. I've looked at them very closely and they are very strange. They are about 9 inches diameter. The grass, clover, weeds, everything inside the circle is burnt a medium brown color. Grass blades growing outside and bending into the circle are brown at the tips inside the circle. Grass growing inside the circle and bending outside the circle are burnt inside but still green on the tips that are outside. Everything dies inside the circle and nothing grows again until nature reseeds the patch.

The circles are spherical in shape. Taller grass gets burnt at a larger diameter. The area of each is about the size of a volleyball or soccer ball, about 8 inches at ground level and 9 to 10 inches at 2 to 3 inches from the ground. There are a couple that are elongated like whatever the cause was moving and bounced off the ground making a skid patch about 18 inches long. I have about 7 to 9 of these circle covering two or three acres of lawn. I had some of these circles last year also. In the past I've had brown spots in the grass but never took the time to look at them real close until last year.

Last week I saw a TV commercial for some insecticide to eliminate 'brown spots' in your lawn. There is no way any insect could have made my brown spots.

My guess is that they are spots burnt by ball lightning during thunderstorms. But some are within five to fifteen feet of being under the electric lines. I would think the wires would drain any electrical charge from the vicinity, as the one wire is a ground wire.

Or maybe "THEY" are practicing their aim and keep missing me?

[Ed]

Or maybe "THEY" are practicing their aim and keep missing me?

LOL, it's all those Star wars satellites!

Do you happen to have any images of these? I'd be interested to see them.

Thanks.

-Ed

[jim_mich]

I need to get a digital camera, I'll add it to my list. Also you don't see the spherical shape so much after you mow over them.

[Techstuf]

May I suggest the Casio Exilim EX-P505....great for almost any kind of shot you should wish to take, including excellent full size 30fps videos limited in length only by the size of SD card you use.

Get yourself a T mount to 43mm adapter and take your pick from a host of available lenses....

I prefer a good sized reflector for for their light gathering ability.

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Let me know if you see any of these:


(bottom of page)

http://www.rense.com/general54/babalc.htm


Peace,


TS

[rlortie]

The circles are spherical in shape. Taller grass gets burnt at a larger diameter. The area of each is about the size of a volleyball or soccer ball, about 8 inches at ground level and 9 to 10 inches at 2 to 3 inches from the ground. There are a couple that are elongated like whatever the cause was moving and bounced off the ground making a skid patch about 18 inches long. I have about 7 to 9 of these circle covering two or three acres of lawn. I had some of these circles last year also. In the past I've had brown spots in the grass but never took the time to look at them real close until last year.

Jim,

I often have had circles in my yard not unlike what you describe. They are commonly called "angel rings" and are caused by a fungus not insects.

Talk to any landscaper or County extension agency dealing in agriculture and they will probabably tell you a simple method to eliminate your specific strain, providing that is yor problem. You may also have some luck doing a net search for "Angel rings"

I did not bother to do anything with some of mine and they grew ins size and did not disappear for two seasons. It takes a long time for grass to come back but boy does it make room for weeds.

Spilled gas while fueling lawn mower will leave a solid brown spot for a while also.

Ralph

[Fletcher]

I studied them once. They occur all over the world. They are commonly found in fields & sometimes well cared for lawns in the middle of suburbia. They typically appear overnight around houses & near people. They often appear in clumps or groups. They are characterized by a dying off of the vegetation which after a week or two grows back with rapid onset & astonishing vitality & vigour.

When I was a boy on my parents small holding my dad asked me casually if I could explain these anomalies. He was looking at me knowingly, like it was a test or something. I pondered it a minute & shuffled my feet & then I informed him casually they were called Micro Nutrient Areas. For some reason he seemed pissed off :)

[jim_mich]

A fungus needs a place to grow like in the ground, which would effect the roots and kill a plant. Some fungi grow on the surface of plants. Usually only certain types of plants are affected and it takes time to grow so it would start small and get bigger with time. No gas was anywhere near the areas. I've seen angle (or fairy) rings where a fungus ring grows larger each year, reaching a few feet in diameter. Fungi usually affect only certain host plants.

My brown rings don't grow, they just appear suddenly between mowings. They are all about the same size within an inch or two. The grass does not die like when a fungus kills the roots. Some weeds and grass blades that are alive growing outside the sphere are brown at the ends that extend into the sphere. Other weeds and grass blades growing inside the sphere are still green on the ends that are outside the sphere. That is what is so unusual. Fungi can't do that. The blades don't even droop or loose their strength for a few weeks. Plants deprived of water will wilt. This doesn't happen.

It's like a spherical ball shaped area got cooked or microwaved almost instantly to a even light brown color.

[ken_behrendt]

Jim...

In reading your description of mysterious "burned" patches on your lawn, I, too, immediately assumed it was ball lightning. I once did a lot of research on the topic for an article I wrote about them. They are very volatile structures of ionized atmospheric gases (plasma) that are momentary stable after formation (longest reported lifespan was about 3 minutes). The very few people who have been able to insert a hand into them reported they were burned by them. They can, at close range, emit infrared and ultraviolet light and the larger blue/violet ones (over a few feet) do not just fizzle out like the small red ones, but, rather, can actually detonate and create a powerful shock wave!

It's too bad that you can not catch one in the act. However, maybe you could rig up a video camcorder to take one frame every fifteen seconds or so during the time when you suspect the hypothetical ball lightning is visiting your yard. Or, perhaps a camera somehow rigged up so that a sudden change in temperature tripped its shutter. These are expensive approaches to solving the mystery. If I can think of a easier, cheaper way to do it, then I'll post the method.

ken

[Vic Hays]

If you have ever researched Tesla you might have found out that there is a significant amount of electrical potential in the atmosphere. Lightning is certainly proof that there must be. I understand that it is on the order of 300,000 volts or more from the outer atmosphere to the ground. There are also lightning bolts that go from the clouds upward as well as those that go between the ground and the clouds.

Tesla patented a simple device to collect some of this energy. A metal plate on a pole which is connected to ground with a capacitor to store electricity in the circuit.

[Wheeler]

Something like that hit me, and all the hair on top is gone!

[terry5732]

It's grubs Jim

[Wheeler]

Maybe it"s The crop circle phenomena!
http://www.webmesh.co.uk/overlord/crop.html

[Fletcher]

Look for the obvious as wheeler said, Porina or grass grub. Dig a patch & have a look at the roots. If they are shallow & withered & you find the occassional grub then there is your answer. If there is no difference to a control patch you can rule that out.

[Trev]

I heard a commercial on the radio last week selling some pour on product to clear up the brown spots on your lawn caused by ..... dog pee!

Trev.

[jim_mich]

Case solved!

I caught the maker of those in mini crop circles the act!

It's my riding lawn mower!

The muffler is just ahead of the front axle. It was designed to vent forward but rust has taken its toll on a baffle plate and it now vents downward. When I stop it cooks the grass.

I found out because the mower deck lost a bearing and I had to stop in the middle of some very green grass as I checked out the problem. After installing the new bearing I went back to finish mowing. The grass had a very BIG burnt spot just ahead of what was mowed, right under where the front of the mower stopped.

Short quick stops make small nine inch circles.

Time for a new muffler.