How to get rid of wide blade (pasture?) fescue

Kentucky bluegrass, Fescue, Rye and Bent, etc
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Pway
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Location: Piscataway NJ
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How to get rid of wide blade (pasture?) fescue

Post by Pway » September 1st, 2020, 2:54 pm

I have no idea how I got at least a couple dozen clumps of fescue (not TTTF, a wide blade pAsture fescue). I have a feeling that getting rid of it means glyphosate or digging it up. Any selective herbicides for this? if I have to dig it out, how deep should I dig? I think I’ve read the roots go deep but looking at some clumps, I see roots only a couple inches deep. Thanks for any advice.

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MorpheusPA
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Re: How to get rid of wide blade (pasture?) fescue

Post by MorpheusPA » September 1st, 2020, 3:30 pm

Not really, but do you want to hear what I can now say since I'm just a member?

Certainty herbicide isn't particularly pasture-fescue (or K-31, or rye) friendly and will set it back hard. Repeated applications will tend to knock it out and I just might have accidentally done this where the neighbors' property and mine met up to their fence to force my bluegrass to take over. By accident, you understand. Slip of the hand. Five or so times in a row every 3 weeks during the season in bands repeatedly until it took over that eight feet in my case.
However, the stuff's not particularly forgiving to a lot of other grasses, either, so I'd be a little careful with that.

Tenacity, repeatedly applied, is also not particularly friendly to lesser fescues as compared to TTTF, rye, and bluegrass. The margin is not so fine...but does not violate usage characteristics. TTTF can handle 8 oz per acre per year split apps. Lesser fescues can't. Unfortunately, rye doesn't do well above 5 either.
In later years, I've used this as well to kick back other things. Accidentally.

ETA: I see you said "clumps," so this is pretty easy. Tenacity should knock it out with repeated apps. It probably came in via bird poo. But even if not, just dig it out next spring and let the surrounding grass--containing bluegrass--fill it in.

So it's a bit of a trade-off, but perhaps better than glyphosate!

Pway
Posts: 771
Joined: May 29th, 2014, 5:42 pm
Location: Piscataway NJ
Grass Type: Northern Mix
Lawn Size: 20000-1 acre
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Re: How to get rid of wide blade (pasture?) fescue

Post by Pway » September 1st, 2020, 7:45 pm

Many thanks Morpheus! I’ll do a follow up post on my progress. I think it was probably bird poop or deer poop (they stopped hunting here in the early ‘70s and deer have overrun things.) thanks again!

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