Crabgrass in St. Augustine

hmaz – posted 01 October 2011 11:29

I live in L.A county and have St Augustine grass, for the last few years I have planted rye grass in late OCT., so when the SA goes dormant in winter I have beautiful green grass then it dies out and ST comes back.What I have noticed is I am getting crabgrass and it seems that this is happening because I use rye.Should I not be doing this? I now need to get rid of the crabgrass.I read that all kinds of weeds are called crabgrass so we need to make sure what I am calling crab grass is crabgrass how do I send you a picture I am new to this site.Thank you

RealGreen5 – posted 07 October 2011 18:23

Just be very thorough with your pre emergent weed control applications during the cooler months of the year continuting until it is too hot to apply per the label on product you select. Rye can contain some foreign seed but you are likely seeing crabgrass that has over wintered as seed. Nothing available to control on a post emergent basis so have to control with pre emergents with timing being key or pull it. Likely a combo of the two the first season. Make sure not to over apply or the lawn will be slow to green up or in extreme cases stunt the growth next spring. Crabgrass is a pain in the backside but good thorogh pre emergent apps will bring it to an end.

seed – posted 08 October 2011 14:44

St. Augustinegrass has a tight canopy and is not normally overseeded in Florida, and to get the ryegrass seed down to the ground might require verticutting or even power raking, either of which is potentially harmful to St. Augustine. I don’t know whether you are thinning out the St. Augustine to get the ryegrass seed down, but that could also be a problem.