Quote:
Originally Posted by beevly
I had been gradually losing the fight for years, and I even tried purposely giving up the fight and letting it all go to crabgrass. That part was fine, that's exactly what happened. I mowed it and it actually looked fine, thick and green. The problem was that crabgrass kills the other desireable grasses (I'm told it actually secretes something to help with that) but the following year it, and nothing else, doesn't emerge until later in the season. The result was next spring all I had was dirt and dried up dead crabgrass from the year before until late June - July when the crabgrass all came up.
2 yrs ago the yard was dug up for a pool replacement, new septic line etc. and we had the opportunity to start over. The first year was fine, I could keep up with hand pulling the occassional crabgrass. This year it started coming back with a vengence. I used Weed-B-Gone max for crabgrass as soon as I realized what was happening, somewhere around late June (SE Conn). I bought a good sprayer so I could easily target individual clumps and leave the good stuff - I could really get it down into the base of the clump with very little overspray, and now all I do is go around and pull up the stray crabgrass clumps I find, about 10 min max.
|
The issue with the crabgrass is that it is so aggressive that it crowds out the turfgrass varieties in its search for sunlight, nutrients and water, eventually killing the turfgrass. And unlike crabgrass, the turfgrasses never grow enough to get to seedhead stage since most folks prefer their lawns to be less than 1 ft.+ tall.
Since the turfgrass isn't ever reseeding, what you're left with is the vast expanses of dirt, filled with decades of crabgrass seed waiting for their chance to germinate. It really is incredible how opportunistic, even predatory almost, crabgrass is.
It is a lot easier to control the crabgrass pre-emergently than after the fact (although as you have found, there are some good post-emergent products) whether it be conventionally (Dimension is a great pre-emergent control usually found in combination with fertilizer as a "Step 1" product-curse the advent of 4-Step programs!), organically (corn gluten meal at 20 lbs./1000 sq.ft.), routinely overseeding during the course of the season (never giving the crabgrass a chance to get going) and fertilizing in the late fall (the turfgrass continues taking the nutrients in right up until the ground freezes and stores them over the winter). Or some combination of the above. Although remember, conventional pre-emergent crabgrass controls will also kill turfgrass seeds for the same period of time (corn gluten meal to a lesser extent). Grass is grass as far as it is concerned.
Crabgrass will begin germinating when the soil temp reaches 60, for a period of at least a week. Mother Nature is often in disagreement with Scotts (4-Step pushers
) as to when the best time to put that crabgrass control down as she doesn't work by a calendar and care about spacing subsequent applications out enough to sell customers 4 different bags of product. Scotts would have you put Step 1 down in March since they want to sell you Step 2 for late May/Early June. The best time to apply that "Step 1" is usually early June, but that screws up their sales model. In the spring, the turfgrass is usually thick, healthy and growing right along pretty well when the soil temps reach 60*so the crabgrass lies in wait. Summer's heat, humidity and (often) dryness brings stress to the turf, thinning it out and slowing its growth. And that's when the crabgrass really "shines" taking the opportunity presented. Pre-emergent controls generally last 8-16 weeks, depending on the product. With a March application, that 8 week product is L-O-N-G since broken down by the end of June and the 16 week product leaves you vulnerable for the better part of July and early August.
Quote:
Originally Posted by beevly
Oh, and lots of watering, fortunately I have a good well.
|
As far as watering, you are better off watering infrequently for longer durations rather than, say, 20-30 min./a day, every day. With frequent irrigation the roots stay right up at the surface, weakening the turf and making it more susceptible to the heat and drought. Bluegrass, which is the least drought tolerant of our cool season grasses, needs 1.5" a week to thrive. What doesn't come from the sky would need to be supplemented via irrigation. Get a rain gauge, or even a cup, and put it in the middle of your yard and see how long it takes to get 0.75" in it. Then you can run your irrigation for that amount of time, twice a week, soaking the soil deeper and training those roots to follow it down. Deeper roots=Stronger plants. Fescues and ryes only need an 1" or less so you can adjust those amounts down accordingly depending on the varieties you've got. Assuming we get at least 0.25" of rainfall (less than that will just moisten the surface), make up that difference later on in the week. Obviously you don't want to change your irrigation practices in the summer, but come spring consider altering your cycles to encourage that root development. Besides, saving water is always a good thing.