Reseeding Plan - glyphosate or not?
danielj_2009
8 years ago
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danielj_2009
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agobeckyinrichmond
8 years agoRelated Discussions
Glyphosate damage to fruit trees
Comments (19)Bob, Most commercial growers use a pre-emergent to control weeds. I've been reluctant to do this at the farm because the trees are young and more susc. to pre-emergent herbicide uptake. Last year I bought some simazine but never did use it. I've got a huge problem with field bindweed, so I plan to use a pre-emergent next year. I'm looking into Prowl H2O. I've also heard a lot of good things about Sinbar. Chateau and Matrix are a couple other options. Some of these pre-emergent herbicides can be very expensive, so that is a consideration. Glyphosate is pretty cheap at roughly $35-$40 for 2.5 gal. Compare that to hundreds of dollars for some of the pre-emergents. This year we pretty much mowed, or sprayed gramoxone. Gramoxone is good for young, non-bearing trees because it has no systemic activity (so it won't kill young trees, unless the applicator is very sloppy and sprays the green bark of young trees). The downside is that there is no residual effect. It's only a burndown, so weeds pop right back up (although weaker). It's basically chemical mowing. Gramoxone is also very hazardous to humans, so all the PPE should be worn. I don't know if this post helps you, but the real lesson, if you have lots of trees, is a good pre-emergent....See MoreFall Reseeding Plans
Comments (12)I totally agree with Turf Toes. It may be better to round up the entire lawn than to attempt overseeding it and hoping the newer kbg outcompetes. One of the few people here that claims to have done so successfully is 2CycleNut who says he prepped and overseeded heavily. I had a KenBlue lawn as well and thought I maxed out on it's potential. It just was not green enough for me even though with proper mowing, proper watering, and organic fertilizer was making everything but color look pretty darn good. Unfortunately for many lawn geeks, that is not enough. The question is, what percentage of your lawn will you be able to establish newer cultivars by overseeding? I don't know the answer to that but if my experience is any indication (I've tried it twice), it is quite small. The long germination and establishment time of KBG is the killer. No matter how much you deprive and summer stress your lawn now (short of killing it), no matter how short you cut it in August and aerate the heck out of it, the beneficial conditions you are giving the existing grass will cause it to flourish and put a beat down on your still-germinating or seedling KBG. It is a losing proposition for the newer cultivars, especially when KenBlue is faster growing and more aggressive. It might be a different story if your current lawn was thin and patchy...but I've seen the pictures and that's not what you have. In your favor, the dead poa trivialis throughout may give some "breathing" room for newer kbg to gain a foothold. Morpheus, you need to think long and hard on what you want and what that decision will give you. Starting from scratch (or even overseeding) is not ideal without an automatic sprinkler. You need multiple short sprinkles a day to keep the surface moist, especially in the heat of summer. In terms of cost, overseeding done properly is almost as expensive as renovating, but with a fraction of the results. After I tried overseeding KenBlue twice, I saw minimal results and was fed up with the labor and money required with each overseeding. After watching the new cultivars germinate and grow at an unbelievably slow pace, I can see why now. I will say this: I have seen KenBlue look absolutely fantantic when I verticut the heck out of it and fertilized. Previously, I had never core aerated it and think that had I added that to my KenBlue lawn maintenance regimen twice a year, I may never have decided to renovate (better lawn but also opened up a can of worms that I will be dealing with for several years). I am a believer to the point that I will say that if you have KBG, yearly core aeration is almost a must. I will also add that at various times of the year my KenBlue lawn looked very good--you should not automatically look down upon KenBlue. It's not show case but it's not a junk yard dog either. There is an old adage: "the enemy of good is perfect" If you do proceed with a serious attempt at overseeding or even renovation, I would recommend you look at sprinkler installation. Not sure how large your lawn is but my guess is that it would be quite reasonable. From what i have seen, the damage to the lawn is quite minimal (not that it would matter at this point)....See MoreRe-seeding lawn
Comments (17)Zach, you are not the first person to write in here with a lawn that looks like garbage. I've been reading here for 10 years and have been a moderator on three other internet lawn forums since 2003. Logan Labs has emerged as the premier soil test lab in the country. It stands head and shoulders above the second best professional lab in Texas. The same test that LL charges $20 for would cost $100 at the Texas lab. These pro labs serve farms and orchards around the world. With their high volume they can cut their prices. Only one of the university tests (U Mass) even offers what the pro labs offer. The university tests give you pH and the soil macro nutrients. The pro labs give you that plus buffered pH, micro nutrients, CEC, the salt components and their ratios. There are a lot more people who write back to say, "I should have gone to Logan Labs the first time," than those who write in to say, "I'm really glad I went with my local county extension service." Seriously, tilling is a huge mistake. It will not do what you want and it will bring new seeds to the surface to sprout. It will take 3 full years to settle and in the end it will be very bumpy. If you want to freshen your soil, the best thing you can do is cover it in 2 inches of shredded tree (or chipped tree) mulch for a month or two. By covering it with mulch it holds the soil moisture more constant and allows the soil fungi to multiply inn population. The beneficial fungi are what make soil healthy. Bacteria is a secondary player along with protozoa and microarthropods. Earthworms are nice but even they could not survive without healthy fungi. Once you get the mulch down, the improvement happens in a huge hurry. Have you ever seen how fast a bag of bread can turn into a bag of green mold? That's how fast it can happen in the soil. However I would argue that you don't need to do that. You can get the same effect by spraying any clear shampoo on the soil at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Do that twice separated by 3 weeks and your soil will improve surprisingly well. Kill the weeds by spot spraying with Weed-B-Gone. The way you remove all the old grass is with a tool called a verticutter, power rake, slit seeder, or any (rented) tool with vertically rotating blades. You can adjust it so it just touches the soil. It will take all the plants out. Rake or blow the old grass away before seeding. Seed directly onto that soil and roll the seed down with a rented roller....See Morefall re-seeding plan
Comments (7)Let me pipe in and be wrong again. But give it some thought, as even a stopped clock is right, twice a day. You very likely have fertilizer starvation. That's because you don't have a lawn. You have sod that was delivered, what, a year ago? Two years ago? It does not yet have the properties of a 'mature' or 'established' lawn, it still has the properties of sod. Sod that has been neglected, mistreated, and even walked on, for crying out loud. The sod, at the sod farm, was coddled. It got regular (every two weeks) half-doses of a mild, organic fertilizer like Milorganite, and watered regularly. That sod couldn't help itself, but to grow strong, dark green (there's iron in that Milorganite) and spread out, filling in all the gaps that might be there. And then, here comes another shot, another half-dose of Milorganite. That sod grew literally from seed, through May, April and June, and was harvested, rolled, mistreated onto trucks, and battered back into a flat lot in a subdivision, over subdivision 'soil'. Sheesh. Ya can't help but feel sorry for it, can you? But the Duke? How does he treat these almost-orphaned, forgotten slices of sod? The Duke is a tough man: he feeds them about a third of what they've been used to. They don't do as well, do they? As that peat that they are rooted in fades away, rots, (I'm sorry, I meant to say "naturally decomposes") those roots drift downward toward the "soil" that the subdivision builder left for the homeowner. That soil isn't so cool, but that's ok, because the builder was going to cover it up anyway, with the sod we've been talking about. It's not OK, if you're the sod. Think about it. What I'd recommend is that you go get some Milorganite, and spread it around, do your best, with a hand-held whirley spreader. You don't have to be perfect, but do a 'good' job. Here's the clue: two weeks later, I want you to do it again, in the other direction (if you were walking North-South, you'll go East-West). Do that three times. Really. Then comes September, and if you see no improvement, go ahead and tear it out. But my money says you'll see terriffic improvement. My money says you'll see enough improvement that you can move to step two: put down a heavy application in the fall of nitrogen. Maybe twice: one in mid september, one on October 30th. Next year, that sod will kick butt. And will be one year closer to being a 'lawn'....See Morebeckyinrichmond
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danielj_2009Original Author