I have never tried this, but I have read about this method to apply roundup to individual grass plants. Put on a rubber glove, then a cotton glove over it. Then you can dip your fingers in the roundup and apply it to each individual plant. And if your neighbors didn't think you were nutty before, just wait till they see you out there caressing your grass. :)

Great Idea..... the double Glove method .........I wil try it soon.

I will give the glove thing a try. I used a small sponge paint brush dipped in a coffee can of RU. I held the leaves in the palm of one hand while I wiped with the other to get good contact.

The strange part is it seems the RU killed the spots that I touched but not the whole plant. Does crabgrass function in a way that it doesn't draw the RU into the whole plant and kill it? Maybe I just didn't use enough. I was trying my hardest to avoid drips.

Maybe I'll try using the concentrate undiluted...used the ready-mix stuff the first time.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Looking Good!

You may want to consider using a weed hound instead of using RU. Seems like it would be much faster and safer.

The RTU stuff contains a contact herbicide along with the glyphosate, that is probably what caused the spot yellowing. The glyphosate itself may take 7 days to show signs, so I would wait and see for a few more days.

I've got a weed hound but I'd rather not use it in this case because I really want to be as gentle as possible on the seedlings. If I can stay on two feet, spreading the weight and not punching holes in the ground, I'd rather do that.

RTU stuff....is that the Spectracide stuff?

Sorry, "ready to use," - Roundup in the spray bottle. Contains pelargonic acid along with the glyphosate. Interesting discussion here:

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-648.html

The whole thing is worth reading, but search the page for "pelargonic acid."

My bad on the RTU....doh.

Excellent read. Thanks for that.

I think I might kick things up a notch and go after the crabgrass using the concentrate I have left over from the full yard kill and use the glove-glove method of application. We'll see if I can't wipe these buggers out.

Sounds good. The concentrate in the bottle with the red cap has diquat also, fwiw. The only one I have seen without some added contact herbicide is the concentrate in the purple cap.

And I always figured roundup was just roundup...

Let us know how the glove treatment works out. I've heard of people doing it, but don't really know the results.

Oh, I also recall seeing someone post an idea on another board where he was going to take a length of PVC pipe, put a sponge in the bottom, then pour roundup in the other end of the pipe and walk around daubing the sponge on the tops of the crabgrass. Of course, he was never heard from again...

Crabgrass will be dead soon. Don't even sweat it. Put out pre-emergent in the spring.

darius_07, I tried the glove treatment today, using Spectracide ready-to-use grass killer. I've done the painting of the blades thing before, and I feel the glove treatment is 5 times better. Obviously, the results will tell the true story, but I feel for sure I was able to get the blades wet since I had direct contact.. I could easily do both sides of the blades of my quackgrass.

Just make sure to not get your gloves too wet and to change gloves (or let your glove dry out) when it's saturated. You don't want to drip product on areas that you don't want dead.

This was a great idea, glad you brought it to this forum!

Just got done with the glove treatment myself. The only downside to having the rubber glove under is you can't feel how wet the fingertips still are.

That said, I agree this is a much better way of applying the RU. I used the concentrate stuff this time....I expect to see some sorry looking crabgrass very shortly!

BTW - the stuff I painted last week still looks sickly but 50% of it just never kicked the bucket. The rest curled up real nice.

Rob

That was an idea I saw on the "other" forum I used to frequent before I discovered GW. I'm glad it helped.

I thought I'd add one thing after using the Spectracide grass killer. It works QUICKLY! I have brown quackgrass already from my glove treatment today, it started turning brown within 2 hours of putting it on.

I'm sure some of it had to do with using the glove treatment, as you can easily get both sides of the blade wet, but this Spectracide stuff is good - much better than the RU I used to kill my lawn initially.

Bob, I'm with you on the fact you can't feel how wet the fingertips are, but I shook my hand inside the bucket I had the Spectracide in to make sure I didn't "drip".

I would apply a fertilizer as soon as possible if you haven't already.

Hey Zhoster, based on your results I'd bet a thousand dollars the spectracide stuff you used also contains a fast acting contact herbicide. I assume the stuff works as the label claims, but here is an interesting thing: the contact herbicides are not absorbed by the roots, but rather only kill the vegetation they contact. I imagine these herbicides are mixed with glyphosate to give the appearance of fast action. The roundup people do the same thing.

The thing is, glyphosate depends on having healthy plant material to let it "translocate" to the roots. So in some sense the contact herbicides inhibit the effectiveness of the glyphosate, or at least it seems to me that they would.

I wouldn't worry about any of this right now. But if your quack comes back, don't give up on trying to kill it this way, just use a glyphosate product that does not contain a contact herbicide next time. Results will be much slower to see, but hopefully (if this app does not do the job) more permanent.

I only mention because IIRC quack grows from rhizomes, which all have to be killed to prevent regrowth.

Good luck!