Need help with this years options....

[northeastlawn]

I have had a battle with POA Annua for way too long, and suspect my KBG reno resulted in just as much KBG as POA Annua. Usually when the lawn starts up I start hitting its with tenacity; after a few apps the POA Annua will yellow, but then I usually run out of apps and it comes back a month later as strong as ever.

Last summer I really stretched the watering to try and kill off the POA Annua and had a lot of the lawn die off. Some of it came back in the fall, some of it is slowly coming back now, but all the edges were really hit hard and are very thin. I have no idea how much of the areas are KBG, POA Annua, or maybe even POA Triv. I guess I'll know in April when thePOA seed heads start coming out.

This year I need to break the cycle of what doesn't work and try something else. I figure my options are......

1.) Wait until later, say after memorial day to start tenacity apps to hit the POA Annua when its really growing and its warmer

2.) Overseed the lawn with PR this spring and just give up n the idea of the KBG filling in

3.) Getting KBG Sod and sodding all the edges, maybe hitting problem POA spots with glysophate, and then plugging Sod in those spots

I kind of ruled out an August over-seed because the POA Annua risk is so great, I would just be giving up a summer pre-m and setting up perfect poa annua conditions again. Tenacity seems to work great, but for mature POA Annua like Im dealing with, I have had mixed results and have never really gotten a straight answer on how well it works.

[ken-n-nancy]

I see from your profile that you have about 1000 - 3000 ksqft of lawn. Do you have enough experience with the poa annua that you can tell the difference between it and the KBG by just looking at the plants?

If so, an approach with which I've had success, and could see being effective for a couple thousand square feet, is hand-pulling the poa annua every time that you see it. Young poa annua plants are quite shallow-rooted and hand-pull quite readily. Initially, this approach will be challenging, as there will be a lot of it. However, pick out a small section of your lawn and just try doing it there.

Another pair of preventative tips are to apply a half-dose of pre-emergent around August 15th, and then again around Sept 30th, to prevent fall germination of new poa annua.

When I start seeing the distinctive poa annua seedheads in spring, I hand-pull everything that I can see. At first, if you have a lot of it, this can seem impossible, but it does get better over time, and also produces almost immediate results.

[ken-n-nancy]

Oh, another hand-pulling tip is that hand-pulling is much easier after a light rain -- those shallow-rooted poa annua plants will practically leap out of the soil with a little tug when the soil is moist.

Good luck!

[northeastlawn]

My problem all along has been killing the mature POA Annua, something I have never found a lot off advice on. My mistakes was assuming Tenacity would kill it and assuming it just died over summer. I guess a few hours pulling it is my penance.

I guess if I did it all over I would kill the lawn in May and reseed in August, but thats not possible so the POA Annua and Triv get through.

With everything going on I haven't found a good source of KBG sod in s.e. Mass, so I did put down my pre-m, so Ill have decide on an over-seed in August.

On the table may be just using PR if the KBG doesn't;t seem to be spreading even though it should now be free of much of the poa annua that stopped it spreading before.