CRABGRASS has taken over

[john246]

Crabgrass has taken over most of my lawn..I live in Northeast PA and treated my lawn in the spring for crabgrass & weeds (dandelion etc,)..we have had a very dry summer and since I didn't cut my grass (nothing was growing the lawn turned brown) crabgrass took over,,2 yrs ago I had a company do everything & the lawn looked great but it was getting to costly so I did it myself..What can I do to stop the crabgrass & prevent the spread of it..CAn I do anything in the FALL or do I have to wait until SPRING...please HELP!!!!.

[Frank]

I'd wait until spring and put pre-emergent down. Good rule of thumb is to do it before forsythias bloom. You may have been too late this year. Do the weeds later.

[tnom]

Try watering your lawn.

[Phisherman]

The crabgrass will die at the first frost. What you need to do now is to heavily overseed your lawn and apply a time-release STARTER fertilizer. Remove any dead grass from your lawn before overseeding and mow to the lowest setting the day of the overseeding. You may need to protect areas with straw. Keep watered for 2 weeks. Next spring apply pre-emergence and apply again after 90 days. Overseed again in fall 2008. Crabgrass seeds can remain dormant for over 15 years, but it has hard time sprouting in a thick lawn. Buy the highest quality weedless seed you can find.

[Norminn]

Crabgrass requires an entirely different control than dandelions. Pre-emergent, I blieve atrazine. Not enviro-friendly. Must be applied at the right time - timing very critical. Ck. with your area extension service. Fertilizing and watering the good stuff helps keep it down, but the dry spells in many areas this summer were beastly.

[C & E]

That has been restricted for many of us in PA due to the drought.

[C & E]

Are you recommending the use of broadcast seeding by hand or is it necessary to rent a seed drill?

[SteveB]

A tip that was given to me by an old farmer is to use weed and feed fertilizers that have amine bases. This is in the % analysis on the label. I don't recall the other chemical base, but the one you want has .....amine on the end. One soaks into the leaves, and one makes a gas. The amine is the best one. As someone here also said, a preemergent is good, but the timing is critical. With the weed and feed varieties, the drawback is that you have to time the watering, cutting, and application in a fine ballet so that it works, and it doesn't work in one treatment. Because you are fertilizing at the same time, you can't apply it every few days or you will burn it with fertilizer, and that is about as bad as just applying a nonselective herbicide to the whole thing and starting all over.

Next time, get yer head out in the sunshine and deal with it before you're knee deep in the stuff.

Steve

[tnom]

Then you'll get drought tolerant grasses.

[Norminn]

clipped

If mown too short, you get brown, dead grass. During drought my son just let the grass grow. It was quite long, but green with no watering while his neighbor's short stubble turned brown. The weed and feed stuff is horrible - you don't need broadleaf weed-killer applications every time you fertilize. One treatment with broadleaf, then periodic spot treatment or hand pulling of weeds should suffice. Seeds remain after treatment, and arrive later, but if consistent good practices are used you will control weeds without constant chem. applications. Pulling one weed by hand might remove several hundred seeds.

[Phisherman]

If there is a layer of thatch either remove that or rent a slit seeder. The seed must be in direct contact with the ground, else it won't sprout. If you use a broadcast spreader, rake the seed into the grass. In PA you really need to get this done ASAP.

[Toller]

Have you thought of crabgrass killer? I am too lazy to go out back and check the bottle, but it is 4 letters starting with a M; not MSDS, but something like that. Works well and doesn't hurt the real grass. Put is on now, so hopefully you can get some grass seed down soon.

Crabgrass takes over a little strip at the road every few years, but this stuff does the trick.

[trader4]

Total nonsense. Weed and feed will do absolutely zippo to solve his crabgrass problem, because these are only effective against broadleaf weeds. Crabgrass is not a broadleaf weed.

As someone here also said, a preemergent is good, but the

Not only is it good, it's be easiest and most effective way of dealing with crabgrass.

With the weed and feed varieties, the drawback is that

You can't apply any herbicide every few days, whether it's a weed and feed product or not. And again weed and feed will not kill crabgrass. But the fertilizer in it will surely help it grow.

Given how late it is in the season, the best thing to do is just wait for it to die, which it will do by late next month. As someone else advised, if the grass has been heavily damaged and is sparse, then you should overseed, using a slice seeder to cut into what's there. If you need to seed, I'd wait till end of Sept, to time the seed germination with the approaching end of the crabgrass.

[trader4]

Agreed. Once a lawn is in decent shape, it should never need weed n feed. Spot treatment of weeds is more effective because it delivers the herbicide right on target and it minimizes the use instead of spewing it everywhere.

One treatment with broadleaf, then periodic

Treatments for broadleaf weeds will do nothing to solve his crabgrass problem, because crabgrass is not a broadleaf weed.

[trader4]

If he has a thatch problem, that should be solved without regard to reseeding. A slice seeder is always the best way to re-seed, without regard to thatch, because that does give the best seed/soil contact. And it's fast and easy.

The seed must be in direct contact with the ground, else it

I'd do it now if he didn't have the crabgrass. But given a severe crabgrass problem, I'd wait a couple weeks, till late sept or first week in Oct, so the crabgrass is dying off as the new grass is establishing.

[trader4]

has taken over most of my lawn..I live in Northeast PA and

Crabgrass killers are most effective when applied when the plants are still small. At this stage, it will take multiple applications. And I've never had much success with the typical post-emergence crabgrass products you find at the home or garden center. They typical take several applications to work, even on modest plants, and damage the turf in the process.

Acclaim is very effective and does not damage the turf. However, it is relatively expensive. If it was July or early Aug, I'd say use it. But given how late in the season it is, I would just let it die off naturally.

[dpb]

has taken over most of my lawn..I live in Northeast PA and

Agree...best bet would be to mow short and regularly the infested area using a bagger and dispose of the clippings to minimize seed production for next year, then go to the preemergent in the spring...

[Toller]

Then I must be hallucinating. But as long as I think it worked well, that is good enough for me!

[dpb]

has taken over most of my lawn..I live in Northeast PA and

Another approach that's cheaper than the granular preemergents if have access to it (may take knowing somebody w/ an applicator's license or a farmer depending on your locale) is a _very_ early spring application of Atrazine -- it is a pre-emergent as well and will stop almost all early annual germinating. For bluegrass turf, etc., it will be ok if used very early (like February before it comes out of dormancy).

[clifto]

I bought, but haven't applied yet, something by Bayer that's supposed to kill weeds and crabgrass.