weednfeed – posted 12 February 2004 14:27
I’m in Atlanta and getting ready to put down Pre-Emergent on my Bermuda in the next week or so. Should I scalp before I put it down or should I go ahead and put it down and wait until later in the Spring to scalp? Also, what Pre-emergent/fertilizer do you recommend?
frenchman – posted 12 February 2004 21:52
You don’t want to scalp your yard until the yard shows first sign of greening up. Also, wait until March about the second week to put it down.
tommy – posted 13 February 2004 07:52
Pre-emergence is the last thing you do , because you don’t want to disturb the barrier it makes on the soil surface. The more the barrier is disturbed, the greater chance of weed seeds finding a chemical free spot to germinate. I also agree with the other post which says to wait awhile before you scalp and apply pre-emergence. Its way too cold to do it now!
ted – posted 13 February 2004 16:16
you’re probably early on the fert.-pre-em program. i know you’re seeing lawn care trucks in your area, but it’s just not time yet! (i was in atlanta last week).pre-ems are highly overrated- they only work for a certain group of weeds and only for a select period of time. the cream of the crop is Dimension- stay away from the barricade or older pre-ems-they aren’t as effective and will stain your sidewalks, etc. – dimension is both a pre-em and a post-em for grassy weeds like crabgrass, goosegrass, etc.-zero effect on look alike grasses like dallisgrass, etc.- too early to fert. also in my view- your grass is not warm enough to take up the fert.
frenchman – posted 13 February 2004 21:36
Alot of major chemical company are pulling Dimension off of their self. I don’t know alot about it, but from seminars and classes I’ve been to keep telling us to stay away from Dimension. Regal Star II is great. It’s pretty expensive 40-50 dollars a bag. The type I use has 21-0-21. Barricade is ok as long as you don’t put it down all at once. The reason is. If you put it all down at once and if you have any winter kill, grass won’t grow there. If you split it up like, put half down in March and the other half in May you’ll be ok.
ted – posted 14 February 2004 10:37
yeah if it works, they’ll probably yank it. it reminds me of a product called mainstay a few years back – great insecticide, but they pulled it. makes you wonder about the politics involved- they’re now talking about bringing back ddt to use in other areas of insect control because it worked so well. watch out for staining on the barricade and it’s not a post-em, either. i haven’t heard that dimension was going to be relabeled. i wonder about the source of that info.
weednfeed – posted 16 February 2004 10:45
I thought pre-emergent was suppose to be down before ground temps are in the 50s for 5 straight nights. The easy way I heard to determine ground temp was to add the days high and low temps and divide them by 2. If that’s true, Atlanta is going to see some 60s this weekend with lows around 40, which puts ground temps in the 50s using the calculation above.
Dave at evergreen – posted 18 February 2004 12:44
In terms of soil temps, whats wrong with a soil thermometer. Have to agree with the effectiveness of Dimension but with the exception of oxidiazon, all the other pre emergent materials are root pruners. Oxidiazon is taken up by newly emerging weed leaves and that is why it has to be applied to dry turf and watered in well to avoid leaf damage.Expensive but the best.
quote:Originally posted by weednfeed:I thought pre-emergent was suppose to be down before ground temps are in the 50s for 5 straight nights. The easy way I heard to determine ground temp was to add the days high and low temps and divide them by 2. If that’s true, Atlanta is going to see some 60s this weekend with lows around 40, which puts ground temps in the 50s using the calculation above.
ted – posted 19 February 2004 15:43
ground temps are usually measured at 4 inches below ground.