Sept in Texas 2018

Bermuda, St. Augustine, Zoysia, Centipede, Bahia, Paspalum, etc
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Dchall_San_Antonio
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Sept in Texas 2018

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » September 7th, 2018, 1:30 pm

It's raining. I got 4 inches in my gauge this week. One coworker has 9 in her gauge. The north side of San Antonio got 9 inches in one night this week. What this means is certain types of plant seeds are going to germinate. Typically these seeds germinate and immediately go dormant for the next 6 months. Then, when the spring rains come, these plants bolt and become either wildflowers or weeds, depending on your perspective.

For those of you getting all the rain in Texas, NOW is the time to plant blue bonnet and other wildflowers seeds for spring flowers.

For those of you getting all the rain in Texas, NOW is the time to apply preemergent to take care of the weeds that become wildflowers in the spring. I mean NOW. You cannot put this off a week or the seeds will have taken root and it's too late.

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Dchall_San_Antonio
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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » September 7th, 2018, 1:37 pm

Guess I missed my chance to edit the post, so I'm replying to myself.
Here is a picture from last year's fall rain event.

Image
See the tiny green dots, those all grew into full sized plants (only 3 inches tall) this spring. There were millions of those plants in the park where we walk our dog. I took a picture every month all winter and they all looked the same until the spring rains.

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by gardenpants » September 7th, 2018, 2:49 pm

Seconded. In my reno area, I'm already seeing henbit and some black medic germination. The time to put down pre-em was more like -yesterday-. ^_^

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by zachhorn » September 9th, 2018, 9:15 pm

This is extreamly helpful. I was just about to ask about timing. Thank you.

I’m in Southwest Austin (closer to Driftwood). Would you suggest Dithiopyr or Prodiamine for me? Also, I am dealing with a manageable (but annoying) amount of “summer” weeds (minor crabgrass, dallisgrass, nutsedge, and a clover of some kind - maybe carpetweed) that began popping up in Mid-August and clearly should have applied more preem this summer. Any suggestions on what to do next year (product and timing)? And while we’re at at Spring as well?

Thanks!

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by zachhorn » September 9th, 2018, 9:36 pm

Adding on to the last post, I also have quite a bit of purslane (other than the carpetweed, this is the most prevalent), and maybe a little doveweed and wild onion. We back up to a greenbelt behind us and my neighbors on both sides don’t do much and are overrun with weeds - so I get it from three sides...)

Thanks again.


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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by gardenpants » September 9th, 2018, 10:24 pm

I've heard that dithiopyr works a little better on our local fall germinating weeds, but both should work.

Dallisgrass, nutsedge, and white clover (Trifolium repens) are all perennials. If they are already in your lawn pre-em will not kill the existing plants. All a pre-em will do is keep the seeds from those plants from spreading. Carpetweed is an annual and a pre-em will keep it out of the lawn next year.

You still have time to treat dallasgrass, nutsedge, and clover. Your window for treating nutsedge is short as it goes dormant in cool weather. Clover, being a cool season weed, is just hitting its fastest growth now, and you have time to treat it. Imazaquin (Image Kills Nutsedge) targets both nutsedge and clover. I've used sulfentrazone (Dismiss, Ortho Nutsedge Killer, Bonide Sedge Ender) with success on sedge, and the label says it's good for clover too, but I don't have experience with it personally.

The best time to treat dallisgrass is coming up in Oct/Nov. There are currently no really good herbicides that will kill dallisgrass in actively growing bermuda--the ones that exist require multiple applications over a season. However, dallisgrass goes dormant later than bermuda. If you wait until the bermuda goes dormant--you want to check the bottom of the leaf blades near the ground to make sure that they are no longer green--you can then spray the dallisgrass with glyphosate to kill it in one shot. (As with all glyphosate applications, it may take a week for the dallisgrass to start turning brown.)

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by gardenpants » September 9th, 2018, 10:38 pm

Pre-ems should control most of your annual weeds. That would include purslane and doveweed...and any other annuals. You really only need to worry about the perennial weeds. Wild onion is perennial. Image does provide control of wild onion.

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by zachhorn » September 10th, 2018, 1:15 pm

Thanks for this. Celsius/Sedgehammer seems to do the trick just fine. As I mentioned, it's at manageable levels right now. However, 2 weeks after I spray post-emergent Celcius and/or sedgehammer, I've been seeing more purslane, doveweed, "carpetweed", and sedge pop up in new places. I think I really should have laid down some more pre-em in late June/early July... (applied some in early April) but am trying to confirm my suspicions.

Am I in the ballpark on this?

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by gardenpants » September 10th, 2018, 3:19 pm

In our region, the first application of pre-emergent should be in early to mid-March. The second application three months later, in early/mid June.

I was under the impression that Celcius only suppressed dallisgrass rather than controlled it. Good to hear that you are getting good results with it.

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by zachhorn » September 10th, 2018, 3:38 pm

Ok great. Thanks. I’ll add a round of Pre-em to my June schedule next year.

Re: Dallisgrass, I’ve only had 2-3 “plants” pop up. My Bermuda is reasonably thick and offers good protection from an all out invasion... The Celsius “weakened” it - but I think it would have come back if I hadn’t dug them up by hand a few weeks after treatment. My bigger annoyance is in all the clover/carpetweed and purslane. Every time I go outside I see a new little area it has sprouted...

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by zachhorn » September 10th, 2018, 10:24 pm

Correction... I miss-ID’d the carpetweed. It’s definitely prostrate spurge... and it’s everywhere.

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by zachhorn » October 20th, 2018, 10:38 am

Dchall_San_Antonio wrote:
September 7th, 2018, 1:30 pm

For those of you getting all the rain in Texas, NOW is the time to apply preemergent to take care of the weeds that become wildflowers in the spring. I mean NOW. You cannot put this off a week or the seeds will have taken root and it's too late.
Dchall, when do you think the next round of preem should go down? Is advisable to put some more down in the winter, or wait until spring green-up?

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » November 7th, 2018, 2:24 pm

I never use preem, so keep that in mind when I make suggestions. It is my observation; however, that in Texas, the rain has more to do with weed seed germination than does the temperature changes or whatever they have in the north that triggers seed germination. In San Antonio there was a cherry tree down the street that always blossomed in late Feb. If I was a preem kind of guy, I would use that trigger for the first app. Then if we got a multi-day rain event, I would reapply.

Here's a shot of my rain in Bandera.

Image

This is crazy rain for us. We never get multiple inches of rain every month in the spring. If you were very serious about it, you would have applied preem every month except June.

Does that help? I'm leaving it up to you to decide for yourself based on the first blooming of any blooming plant in your neighborhood and/or multi day rainfall events.

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by zachhorn » November 7th, 2018, 6:57 pm

Very helpful, thanks. I’m new to applying preem also... I’ve always been in Texas with either Bermuda or St. A lawns... but this past summer was the first in our new home - new development near Dripping Springs with a large green belt out back... and I started getting overrun with weeds in an otherwise very healthy lawn. So, I’m having to rethink my weed treatment game... this helps!

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » November 15th, 2018, 5:36 pm

Wife's nephew just moved into a new house north of Dripping Springs. It backs to a green belt, too. Lots of rocks in the soil, but they covered it with grass.

How much shade do you have in the problem area? I'm guessing it's getting too much shade, thinning, and allowing the weeds in.

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by zachhorn » November 15th, 2018, 9:22 pm

Actually, not much shade at all... The front of our house faces North and the problem area is the back yard - which is full sun. The grass is pretty think and healthy, which further baffles me... we did put in a stone patio in the early spring, so the traffic back there could have stressed the lawn a bit... but the heavy weeds didn’t appear for 4 months after they were done.

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Re: Sept in Texas 2018

Post by andy10917 » December 23rd, 2018, 10:03 pm

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