my struggle with weed prevention and management

[timingchainslipped]

background:
*i renovated last year, 100% KBG, 4 cultivars (midnight, bewitched, everest, and diva).
*thanks to the advice here, i fallowed, and had very little weeds initially in my renovation.
*thanks to advice here, i brought in nearly 100 yards of top soil to compensate for my highly soily sand. (funny, right?)
*however, prior to renovating i did have a few problematic areas with compacted soil. the compacted soil was a byproduct of heavy machinery mainly. some other areas were stricly a byproduct of mounds of that top soil that i just got tired of evenly and properly spreading; it is basically the mound that fell out of the bobcat bucket that i never got around to spreading. it baked in the sun and just got stuck as a thick mound of hell. i have been hitting these areas fairly hard with BLSC/KH weekly.
* most of my lawn is less than .5" tall. no clue how it got like this. i winterized it at 2".

prevention woes:
1. right before the forsythia bloomed, i had someone spray a pre-emergent + BLSC/KH. they used a tracker dye so it went down fairly evenly. i trust that the mixtures were accurate, but they were instructed to spray 1/3 the yearly allowance to give leeway for odd weather.
2. the soil remained undisturbed since that application.
3. within 1 month of that application a considerable amount of weeds germinated and grew (don't recall seeing them beforehand).
4.only one smallarea had broadleaf weeds.
5. 95% of the weeds that grew were grassy weeds. i tried to have them id'ed but no one chimed in. i suspect they are either goose, crab, or quack.
6. i can't help but wonder if the intense rain we had washed the preemergent barrier too far below soil. i recall reading something along those lines. in which case, maybe i should have the problematic treated with the next 1/3 application?

management woes:
7. the triangle approach requires that we apply fertilizer and then attack the weeds 10-14 days later.
8. i spot treated the poa annua with tenacity, but in retrospect, it may have been wiser to just use roundup since i plan to re-seed some poorly reno'd areas in fall.
9. i did not apply fertilizer, as i recall reading that it does more harm than good to apply fertilizer to a newly renovated lawn that has not "greened up" on its own. i chose to wait.
10. i did spray all of the weeds, despite the lack of fert, with 2,4d/dicamba/MCPP.
11. a week after that failed, i bought an off the shelf crabgrass killer at home depot and tried that. doesn't seem to have helped.
12. considered hiring a company that has access to post-emergents that kill goose/crab/quack but i get the feeling with those companies are overpriced and ineffective.
13. instead i've decide to lean on kbg's spreading abilities and paint them with glypho. i realize this might not look pretty short term. but i went out and painted the lawn. too forever.
14. waiting to successfully kill those weeds, i let them grow too tall, and they probably seeded a lot. i kept my eyes on them all, and saw little to no seeds, but i noticed as i mowed the smaller ones, they seeds early and i probably never noticed each of them in that stage.
15. before cutting those tall weeds, i went around like a crazyperson bagging anything with a seedhead, in hopes of mitigating the damage next time around. then i went ahead and cut everything with the mower that was high enough to cut.

where did i go wrong? i've probably spent 4-5 entire weekends dealing with this and i'm ready to give up. or is this just part of the process?

[andy10917]

Sorry to say, but there are far too many "one week later, I declared failure and changed direction" points here. That's called impatience. Instead of the slow-and-steady approach that would have you done with a couple of levels of the Triangle Approach, you've been all over the board with no discernible result -- and you're ready to give up.

[timingchainslipped]

sorry, andy. i didn't do a good job with my explanation. i could see why you'd say that. but i think if i just make a few qualifications, you'll find i kept true to the plan. (i think).

so most of the broadleaf weeds easily knuckled under the first 2,4d. they didn't vanish, but they look brown and dead; as if they had melted/stretched like playdoh. i'm not sure if i just wait whether they'll disappear, or am i supposed to remove them somehow?

after the first application, i was left with 3 grassy weeds 2,4d can't kill and they're all over my lawn. (maybe it's a or single grassy weed, i can't tell). so i figured i'd target them again my second application of the first triangle stage. this is when i switched to the crabgrass killer; which is 2,4d, mcpp, dicamba + something else. so, besides the something else, it still kept true to the 2,4d second application.

next app is gonna be triclophyr. i have about 5 days left of waiting for day 10 of fertilizer before i can start applying that.

if that app fails, then i don't know what i'm gonna do.

i guess the time isn't spent so much trying things i'm not supposed to try, it's just that i have a huge lawn, and i work a mentally taxing job and got used to not having to do much on the weekends :)

[timingchainslipped]

well, now that you mention it, i might have jumped the gun on the glypho. i did paint it onto the grassy weed tho.

i remember reading HLG was doing the same. and that there's no treatment for quack and crab. and nearest i can tell, in NY, there's nothing legal that a homeowner can buy as a post-m for crab. so they all seemed like they fell nicely into the glypho boat; that or hire a service that has access to post-m's for those. i'm 99.9999% sure whatever i glyphoed was crab, goose, or quack.

[andy10917]

You did NOT post-m Crabgrass in April. There is no visible crabgrass in NY in April - period.

[timingchainslipped]

so goose or quack :)

i know you're not the weed ID guy, but for those who are:

https://s6.postimg.cc/vi9zuun1d/RP2_C3a_D.jpg
https://s6.postimg.cc/tnx5d400x/NHTqcuq.jpg

the other one i assume are goosegrass. i had a lot of it before last years reno. i can't tell the goose apart from crab when there's grass intermixed, but since it can't be crab, must be goose.

[seiyafan]

Do you know what pre-m they used? And did you use any pre-m last fall?

[timingchainslipped]

last fall i reno'ed, so i only used tenacity.
and i want to say they used pendi or diop.

[gave20]

so goose or quack

i know you're not the weed ID guy, but for those who are:

https://s6.postimg.cc/vi9zuun1d/RP2_C3a_D.jpg
https://s6.postimg.cc/tnx5d400x/NHTqcuq.jpg

the other one i assume are goosegrass. i had a lot of it before last years reno. i can't tell the goose apart from crab when there's grass intermixed, but since it can't be crab, must be goose.

quack

[timingchainslipped]

Do you know what pre-m they used? And did you use any pre-m last fall?

is that why the weeds broke through? because they used pendi?
all the good stuff isn't allowed on the island :(

[seiyafan]

It would be better if you could apply Prodiamine.

[timingchainslipped]

i'd have to hire a more expensive landscaper for that, but it's doable.

though it wouldn't have worked for me this year, because i plan to re-seed some bad areas in the fall.

[seiyafan]

How big is your yard? Why can't do it yourself?

[timingchainslipped]

i work a lot, so anything time consuming is tough. not to mention, i don't think it's available to long island.

here is what might be goose but is probably just quack:

[HSB3-LI]

Most of the popular pre-m's are available in some form or another on LI. Some are available to homeowners, and some to licensed applicators only. You can check here for pesticide status, click products:
http://www.dec.ny.gov/nyspad/
Be sure to check the appropriate LI or Nassau/Suffolk check box on the side.
Dimension can be found at most orange big box stores in the form of lesco 19-0-7 fertilizer with crabgrass preventor. I've also seen fertilizers with prodiamine available at some wholesale nurserys open to the trades.

[timingchainslipped]

great links. good to know. thanks. feel stupid for not having searched harder.

[1977212]

Looks like quack and orchard. Just pull up the orchard and hit the lawn with light N apps till it gets warm.

Orchard is triangular stem with purplish hue on the base. Quack has tell tail signs like my avatar, don't pull quack as it can regrow 3 times over because it stores so much energy in its roots.

[timingchainslipped]

thanks for all of the help guys.

so my next question, i seem to be getting new quack as fast i'm killing the old ones. everything else is pretty much under control.

am i getting new quack because my pre-emergent wore off? if so, knowing i plan to reseed/overseed much of the lawn this fall, should i apply a pre-emergent now? and if so, which would you recommend?

i think if i got prodiamine, and applied it at 1/4 rate, it would cover me for 3 months. right up till i wanna seed.

[seiyafan]

Existing quackgrass spread by rhizomes so pre-M will not work. It's what I call MOAW (mother of all weeds)

[timingchainslipped]

so the glypho doesn't make it's way into the rhizome system when i paint them?