Please help!!!!

concerned mom – posted 30 August 2003 09:49

The school that my son just started going to has sand burrs all over the playground. They have tried everything they can think of to get rid of these pesky burrs and yet they still reappear about a week after their gone. My son went to play on the grounds during the open house just before school started and fell into a pile of them that had appeared under the see-saw. He now refuses to play anywhere in the yard because they hurt him. The counsel states they have tried everything and they have still yet to find out what to do since they have been there since his grandpa went to school there. What can we do and/or use to get rid of there sand burrs for good??? PLEASE HELP we need it. Thanks for your time.Sincerely,Keegan

Dchall_San_Antonio – posted 31 August 2003 00:02

Do they fertilize at the school? Many large scale operations on a tight budget will not fertilize nor water due to the costs. If you fertilize, the grass grows and then it needs to be mowed and watered so the costs go way up.

Grass grown in healthy soil usually does not have a problem with grass burrs. If water and fertilizer are not issues, the first thing I would suggest is to spray molasses at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet (gallon to the acre) and repeat that 4 times during the growing season. Then I would suggest using corn meal or alfalfa pellets at a rate of 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet (450-900 pounds per acre).

Some places with this plague will drag a piece of carpet upside down over the area to pick up the burrs. If you have nests of them all in one spot, a weed burner works well, too.

murph – posted 16 September 2003 23:10

Mow and mow and mow. That worked for us. The life cycle of the plant is short. It just keeps spitting out seeds and new little plants grow. When we mowed twice a week for awhile – maybe two months, depends on the season – the burrs and most other weeds disappeared. They couldn’t set seed and the older plants died off. The other benefit was that it looked good all the time because the taller weeks weren’t showing.

Lucky for us, this was only on one side of the yard that had been neglected. Before deciding to kill it and start with fresh sod i did an experiment to see if i could save it. Not over or underwatering, feeding, testing and adjusting pH, growing the right variety of grass and constant mowing .

That might not be a practical solution for a school playground but there might be an area that you can designate to be watered/mowed/fed regularly and maybe overseeded? Sort of a safe section for rolling in the grass?