HELP – lawn burn from MSMA

tekepinto – posted 25 July 2004 10:56

I recently moved from northern Canada to the southern US and am not familiar with lawn care in this climate. I have bermuda grass, and the guy who does my lawn treated it with MSMA in mid-June and had great results (there was a LOT of crabgrass).

Some of the crabgrass survived, and he recommended he do it again this past week. He advised us not to water the following day, and now most of the lawn is turning brown and looks like it is dying. I watered two days after the application when the grass started to brown, and again today. (the MSMA was applied 3 days ago now)

Is our lawn going to die or is there anything I can do to revive it? I would call the guy who does the lawn but is is away on vacation this week.

ted – posted 25 July 2004 15:41

it sounds like somebody needs to positively identify this weed….. if it’s truly crabgrass, and you’re paying to treat the lawn and following decent watering and mowing practices, then why is it there???? if it’s crabgrass, then he’s using the wrong product. msma is an older product that’s used for perennial grassy weeds, not annual grassy weeds. he should try acclaim in my opinion or one of the newer post emergent grassy weed controls. pretty much these days there’s a individual herbicide for each weed.

TurfUnlimited – posted 27 July 2004 06:36

One practice I’ve heard is to apply iron to the mix when using MSMA. This is done to minimize the yellowed/burned appearance to the Bermuda.

You might have them try an iron app and see if that helps.