Spring PreM with large fall overseed?

[mgarnto1]

Hi everyone,

First, nuking the yard is what I should do, but I have signed a Nuclear Standdown Treaty with my wife. It's non-negotiable so I must take another avenue.

Now that that's out of the way, below is my plan.

-16 Apr: spray yard with ortho weed clear (2,4-d, dicamba, and quinclorac)
-1-2 weeks later: let the first round of killer take hold then fertilize with something generic (don't have a soil test yet) + another round of weed killer if needed
-Mid-end of May: step up to level 2 of the triangle approach if necessary (99% sure it will be lol)
-Maintain throughout the summer
-August heavy overseed + tenacity

Misc:
-get a soil test ASAP and then lime/fertilize based on that

Now my actual question is, should I use pre-emergent knowing that I'm doing a heavy overseed in the fall? I have two thoughts in mind and not sure which one is better.

1- no PreM so that I simulate a fallow/nuking the lawn as best I can. I'll be fighting weeds all summer but should mean fewer weeds to fight after seeding.
2- Use a spring PreM to minimize herbicide usage over the summer. This may allow the existing grass to fill in/get healthier than option 1.

So, which one would everyone pick?

[MorpheusPA]

No pre-emergent. Then there's no risk of anything getting in the way in August.

[northeastlawn]

How much crab grass does the lawn have?

The spring pre-m is mostly for Crab Grass. You can kill CG when its young with Quinclorac, but if you have a lot of CG you will find its easier to make sure it doesn't germinate in the first place.

If you can't nuke the whole yard in the Fall; even though CG dies in the winter, you don't want a lot of it in your way when you over seed

You may have signed a nuclear treaty, but can you get away with some special ops? :-)

If your not doing a full nuke on the lawn, I would suggest that any thing that looks funny and not like the grass you want to keep gets glysophate.

Needless to say and poa-triv or poa-a seed heads get sprayed to make sure they don;t make to the fall over seed, don;t worry about killing the good grass, you will be over seeding anyway.

You may not bet able to get a blank slate for the fall, but you can make sure their aren't any terrorist lurking in the lawn once you do your over seed.

[PSU4ME]

I’d vote no preM, fight weeds, kill with glyco what you don’t like and then do a good overseed followed by the needed tenacity treatments as a preM.

How big is the yard?

[Green]

Keep in mind that Quinclorac and Mesotrione can both act as short-term pre-Ms due to a 20-45 day (or so) residual in the soil. This is a good thing, because you get a pre-M type of effect without using a real pre-M.

[flyin-lowe]

If it were me I would put down some prodiamine at a level that will wear off by August. If for some reason you don't overseed you can put another app of prodiamine down in the fall. If you do overseed then you should be good to go. My experience has been that the pre m does most of it's work against grassy (Crabgrass etc.) weeds not broadleef stuff. So if you do or do not put it down now it won't have a huge impact on how many weeds (broadleef) you have to fight this summer.