Greenrebellion's Fall 2017 Renovation

[HoosierDaddy]

Sure it's quack and not crabgrass?

[greenrebellion]

Sure it's quack and not crabgrass?

Ya, I'm sure, if there is one weed that I am an expert at identifying, it is quackgrass. Clasping Auricles, membraneous ligule and the way the roots look are the giveaways for me.

Surprisingly, I have every weed in the book on my lot except crabgrass. Which is a shame because crabgrass is relatively benign with the proper pre-emergent regimen.

[HoosierDaddy]

Ugh, sorry man.

[greenrebellion]

Quack may be the least of my concerns this fall. If THIS (pic taken in early Spring) is Triv then it is going to dominate my front yard once it comes out of dormancy in Fall as I assume roundup will not eliminate it while in dormancy during the fallow period.

I wonder if a Spring renovation would be more successful in my situation given that my weed problems revolve around grasses that go dormant in summer (Poa Annua / Triv) and roar back as soon as temps start to cool. Seems like spring roundup would be more effective.

Might have to go that route if I fail again this fall. In the meantime, I'll keep working on optimizing my soil and hoping for the best in August.

I'll be fallowing June 30th.

[smast16]

Are you referring to that large clumping grass in the center, if so that's not POA Triv. You should try and Id it at the nc state weed Id website below.
http://turfid.ncsu.edu

[greenrebellion]

Are you referring to that large clumping grass in the center, if so that's not POA Triv. You should try and Id it at the nc state weed Id website below.
http://turfid.ncsu.edu

It is some form of rough bluegrass which I think all go by the name Poa Trivialis. Here is another pic. The seedhead is the giveaway here for rough bluegrass. Darker seed head than Poa Annua.

The ligule, seed head, auricle and leaf tip all match this description (easier to see these details in person versus the photo) - http://turfid.ncsu.edu/csPagedPdField.a ... ntID=POATR

Note that there is some KBG mixed in with the weed in the pic.



On a separate note, I was out looking at my grass today, specifically some of the barren areas of soil that got washed out from rain last August. There is KBG popping up in these areas and when I plucked them, they are spreading from rhizomes from surrounding grass. So my grass is growing HORIZONTALLY but refuses to grow VERTICALLY. Would be hilarious if it wasn't so unfortunate

[greenrebellion]

So it begins... renovation round 2.

Nuked front and side yards this morning. Will scalp it this weekend.

I put an inch of water down and fertilized this past weekend so hopefully this leads to a good kill. Still worried about dormant weeds like Triv and such but nothing I can do at this point.

Test plot appears to have fully germinated and is in pout mode. Now the question is will it pout indefinitely like last year's renovation (which is still pouting) or will it decide to grow at some point???

[fusebox7]

That clump definitely IS a phenotype of rough bluegrass/Poa Trivialis. I know because I have/had it. It is ugly. I think you can overcome it though. It will take time but as everyone on this forum says, encourage the good and discourage the bad. You'll make it to the other side in due time!

[greenrebellion]

Apparently my vertically challenged KBG is Roundup ready.

[edenl01]

Has it gotten much water lately? I know the key to most herbicides is to apply to activey growing grass. If it's barely hanging on and in survival mode it may not take up herbicides well. That's a guess and just an idea and it's worth what ya paid for it.

[greenrebellion]

Has it gotten much water lately? I know the key to most herbicides is to apply to activey growing grass. If it's barely hanging on and in survival mode it may not take up herbicides well. That's a guess and just an idea and it's worth what ya paid for it.

Ya, we got 1.2 inches of rain Saturday and 0.5 yesterday. So plenty of water. And temps have been seasonally cool for the past week so it should be perfect herbicide weather.

[greenrebellion]

BLSC and KH applied last week, will continue doing that every other week until seed down. Will scalp tomorrow and start watering/fallowing. Next glyphosate app scheduled for July 15th.

I also mailed in my follow up soil structure test that Andy wanted me to get at some point. Should have results from that early next week.

As an aside, the grass in the backyard is now almost universally growing vertically (albeit slowly). There are some areas that are still not growing but maybe 15% of the backyard max. THe KBG in the back is a really nice dark green and is quite thick in spots, but there are way too many grassy weeds to make it salvageable imo and avoid a reno next year. Tons of quack, tall fescue, rye, Triv etc. I was excited that this was the first time this year that I was able to mulch mow as there are very few, if any, seed heads in the backyard now that the Poa is dead and the Triv is dormant.

[greenrebellion]

Day 29 post test plot seeding and it is NOT looking good, massive grassy weed pressure, numerous Poa Annua seed heads, Triv is in there too. KBG seedlings still in very early seedling stage and might be stuck there. Not sure how to avoid a repeat of last year at this point.

Plan B/C = Sod (front only) and be done with it or scrape 2" of soil and bring in new topsoil. But I'll worry about that in 2018, this renovation is going forward no matter how elusive success may appear to be.

Fallowing is in process for a week+ now...not optimistic that Poa A & T are going to germinate in July temps. I suspect the test plot weeds germinated because temps were below average last half of June.

[SNOWBOB11]

It really stinks that your having trouble growing your KBG. I'm not able to give any advice on anything you could try but I hope you can figure it out. I'm rooting for you.

[greenrebellion]

It really stinks that your having trouble growing your KBG. I'm not able to give any advice on anything you could try but I hope you can figure it out. I'm rooting for you.

Thanks man, I'll get it figured out eventually. Might take me a few years but I'll get there.

[greenrebellion]

In an effort to continue to figure out WTH is going on with my dirt, I present to you soil profile shots. When I was recently digging soil samples, I noticed that I have a bifurcation in the soil that wasn't there a year ago. At first I though, it must be THATCH! but I don't think so, thatch is made up of dense roots, dead shoots etc. and I don't think that's what I have here.

That said, what is this black soil layer at top, somehow I doubt I've built an inch of black topsoil in a 12 month period. Any thoughts?

[greenrebellion]

Minor spot treatment with glyphosate
Applied 10/10/10 fertilizer at 10 pounds per K
Also put down BLSC/KH
Watered it all in

I'll probably do two more blanket apps of glyphosate before my seed down date. Shooting for a seed down date of the 9th or 10th of August. I figure a bit earlier will give it that much more time to establish before the Poa A & T onslaught that I know is coming.

All I can bank on at this point is allelopathy being my problem. Longshot? Sure. But no one else has any answers (and believe me I've reached far and wide).

Here's an excerpt I found online from an msu archive from 1982 (LINK):

P. pratensis seed germination in the laboratory was lower in the presence of P. annua seedlings. Inhibition of P. pratensis germination did not occur, however, when aqueous extracts of mature P. annua plants were used. Seedling root and shoot growth of all three species was effected by the nearby seedlings of the other species and by extracts from mature plants. P. pratensis was the most sensitive of the three species to treatment...P. annua may also act detrimentally to the growth of P. pratensis...some of the effects of allelopathy in this study were quite large in magnitude, such as a 3x increase in disease, or a total inhibition of shoot growth

Is my situation unique when it comes to P. annua? I think so, because I truly do not joke around when I say I had a P. annua monostand. It was literally everywhere. Could this domination explain the lack of growth of P. pratensis? Could it explain why the backyard is finally growing (albeit VERY slowly - i imagine the impacting chemicals may take a while to leach out of the clay soil) shortly after the P. annua got wiped out by a 3.5 week drought where I didn't irrigate?

I don't have any scientific answers. All I can do is continue to observe and hope an answer emerges at some point. The issue for me is that I have a billion more P. annua seeds sitting in my reno just waiting for late August.

[llO0DQLE]

Kudos to you for your persistence in trying to solve this. Chalk me up as another one rooting for you!

[greenrebellion]

I don't necessarily expect to get replies on this hairbrained idea, but if anyone has any thoughts, please advise.

What if I do something a little crazy and renovate July 26th, irrigate aggressively and then put a pre-em down September 3rd coinciding with P. annua season. Prodiamine says 60 days/2nd mowing so it would be pretty aggressive timing and would likely stunt KBG to some degree. However, is it worth a try given my unique situation?

With my test plot failure, I'm highly concerned that I'm going to end up with another P. annua monostand by mid September if I remain on my current course. Keep in mind that whatever biotype of P. annua I have seems to not be affected by Tenacity (3 apps last fall did nothing).

I pretty much have to decide by tomorrow if I'm going to proceed with this as this moves up the schedule by two weeks. My main question is does ANYONE have any experience with early and off-label pre-emergent timing. Is the label being overly conservative or is it guaranteed death for the KBG if I apply near day 40 post seeding?

[seiyafan]

Go with Dimension, the label on Jonathan Greens' Crabgrass and Weed preventer says you can apply 2 weeks after germination.