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Organic Lawn Care

To kill the crabgrass or not to kill?

13 years ago

I have a lot of crabgrass mixed into my bermuda lawn. I would say 75% bermuda and 25% crabgrass. I fertilize with soybean meal every month and give my lawn 1 inch of water every week. Also I mow at 1 inch every 3-4 days. I can deal with the crabgrass knowing it will die at the first frost but was wondering if it would be best to kill it now or just let it go? I guess I have several thoughts on this starting with keeping my lawn mowed every 3-4 days to prevent seed heads. Would mowing this often keep the seed heads from coming up and producing more crabgrass next year? I will be using CGM for a pre-emergent this fall and spring with hopes of some help. I have some crabgrass killer from garden weasel which contains cinnamon but not sure if I want to go that route. I was hoping the bermuda would choke out the crabgrass but not sure if that will ever happen. Okay so what should I do? I'm open to suggestions and ideas. Thanks guys!!!

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Comments (7)

solc
13 years ago
you bought the garden weasel? I would try it out. See how it works.
uncle_al_tkp
13 years ago
Probably easier to prevent then kill. Corn gluten meal, not corn meal, applied in the spring when the forsythias bloom. It's also good source of N.

Al
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Prevention is the best solution for weeds. Crabgrass seed needs two things to sprout and grow. It needs constant soil moisture and it needs plenty of sunlight. You control both of those to some extent. If you let the surface of the soil dry out completely between waterings, then the crabgrass seed is highly unlikely to sprout. That is why the mantra for decades has been to water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means one inch all at one time. Infrequently means monthly during the cool season and no more than weekly during the heat of summer. Your mileage will vary depending on wind, heat, humidity, shade/sun, soil condition, and grass type. Whatever you do, do not water every single day for 10 minutes. That becomes a crabgrass factory. Watering every day for 10 minutes is exactly what is prescribed for seeding a new lawn, but when you do that in the spring, crabgrass sprouts. When you do that in the fall, no crabgrass sprouts. Secondly you can grow as much grass as possible and grow it tall. Seed your fescue now to get a dense stand of grass by spring. Then in the spring do not mow it shorter than 3 inches. Tall, dense turf will provide too much shade to any weed seedlings that may have sprouted from spring rains. If they cannot get enough sunlight, they cannot take root. This is your second line of defense. Usually that is enough. Herbicide, preemergent or post emergent, is not necessary, but is often relied upon.
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Ok super!! Thank you both for taking the time to answer my questions! I hadn’t realized that the pre m actually allows the seed to sprout! I am very much looking forward to the season That I can spot treat crabgrass and not use chemicals on the entire system. This is the beginning of the third season of my lawn so I am hoping to see some really nice thick healthy growth and minimum weeds. Patience patience patience I have to keep reminding myself
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I used the weed b gone max w crabgrass control, several applications. It burnt the weeds for a short time. But with week-long rain lately, they all come back stronger. I don't mind pulling them out in my lawn (where there're only a few of them there,) but the entire strip of grass island is now all crabgrass. I want them gone so I can resow grass in the fall. Should I spray it with roundup, dig up all the dead roots, and put down preen before resowing grass seed in Sept? It doesn't help that my entire neighborhood is infected with crabgrass worst than me. Quick question: are they poison ivy?
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This may be...beyond simply feeding it. Look under and around the dead stuff. Is there a lot of green grass there? Or stuff you can identify as merely napping off right now? If not, I might consider deeply scalping that, removing the trash I could, and overseeing that when temperatures cool. Fortunately, those days are coming fast, usually about mid-August for you guys in Michigan. You'll have to water an overseeding--just in that area if that's all there is--three times daily, though.
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granburyflowergirl
13 years ago
I'll be following this thread closely as I have the same problem!

I'd really like to know how well the garden weasel works too, at 19.99 to treat 100 square feet, it should be pretty amazing!

I put corn gluten meal down in the spring this year, but I still have LOTS of very healthy crabgrass in my Bermuda (about 25%).

Does it really die at frost or just go dormant?

Nik
solc
13 years ago
I've heard from the dirt doctor (howard garret) that findings are coming out that CGM are not as effective on healthy, organic soil that is biologically active. I think what it was saying that soil was so good that it broke down the CGM very quickly, thus cancelling its affect as an effective herbicide.
Kimmsr
13 years ago
How well Corn Gluten Meal works as a pre emergent depends on when it is applied. Many people, after applying it at the wrong time (too late in the spring, during the summer, in the fall) will tell you it does not work. If applied about 6 weeks before the "weeds" it is supposed to control start to germinate CGM works quite well, but if applied after the "weeds" start to germinate, or much longer than those 6 weeks, it will not be very effective.
If you can keep the crabgrass you now have from producing seeds you will have less (depending on how many birds fly over after eating crabgrass seeds) crabgrass next summer. Most of us have the species of crabgrass that is an annual and since it needs soils of a fairly warm temperature with the right amount of moisture to germinate working on getting your grass to grow in thick to help keep the soil cooler will help keep that from happening.
west9491
13 years ago
I agree with the preemergent method. Because I spread some corn gluten back in February only on my front lawn, it has significantly less crabgrass than my back yard or vegetable garden. So while it does work, like kimmsr said: timing is everything. Spreading CGM in fall will take care of some of your cool season weeds that may be waiting to germinate but if you are more concerned about crabgrass, do it just before the forsythias bloom in late winter early spring.

Oh ya, and while mowing frequently may help, from my experience, the way crabgrass grows more horizontally than vertically you are going to miss a lot of seed heads.
granburyflowergirl
13 years ago
Oh, I put my CGM down on April 6th, some forsythia was still blooming then. I didn't realize its supposed to be put down just before it blooms...ah well, next year

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