Weed Control for Floratam – Nutsedge and Bermuda

mwcole83 – posted 04 November 2015 16:24

Hello all,

New to the forum, but have been reading past posts and feel this is a good place to get established and find good information.

I am having issues with Nutsedge and Bermuda weeds showing up and spreading in my lawn which is Floratam. Below is a little background history of my lawn and corrective actions I have taken. I have somewhat of a green thumb, but chemicals and fertilizers are still new to me. I now live in Southwest Florida.

The Low Down:I established a new lawn roughly 1 year ago by killing off the preexisting weed lawn with spray, waited 2 weeks, raked up dead stuff, sprayed again, then tilled up the top 3 inches of ground and sprayed again. Sorry if that’s overkill but wanted to be sure the bad stuff was gone as much as possible.

After that I laid down floratam sod, purchased directly from a sod farm, beautiful lush condition, cut that day and delivered. After about 4 months it had filled in nicely and still looked amazing. At that point I hired a lawn care company to take care of the fertilization and pest/weed/fungus/control. About 2 month after that things started to go downhill and continued.

Now I have a lawn that has several large spots devastated by take all root rot and on top of that I am seeing a lot of Nutsedge and Burmuda grass coming up and spreading. I realize the weeds are probably due to the fact my lawn is not strong from the take all root rot.

I have gotten ride of the lawn care company, and established a new one a month ago and am staying on top of what they put down and treat the lawn with. So far they seem to be doing a decent job but told me what they use will not do much for the Nutsedge and Bermuda. They have also sprayed several fungicide types to help with the take all root rot, which has seemed to stop spreading but I can tell is still active in the already bad spots, so spreading could come back up.

In response, I have taken measures to combat the take all root rot by recently, (3 weeks ago), adjusting the watering time length and frequency to help dry out the soil. I have also had the lawn aerated this past week and just had potassium/nitrogen laid down. I have also taken over the maintenance of the lawn to ensure its being mowed more frequently and at a better height, (4″) to help promote its health.

Wanting to know what can be sprayed or put down to help combat the Nutsedge and Bermuda weeds. please take in mind the lawn is weak from the fungus and don’t want to stress it out to much. My main goals are to get it healthy again and take care of the weed problem before it gets too out of hand. If anyone has any ideas to help the fungus as well that would be great.

Thanks in advance for the help and sorry for the long post..

Michael

Phil Busey – posted 09 November 2015 15:52

Sorry about the delay. There are several excellent products for control of nutsedges in St. Augustinegrass, of which I prefer Sedgehammer (active ingredient halosulfuron). Image (active ingredient imazaquin) is also good, but be careful. A milder selective control for nutsedges is Certainty (active ingredient sulfosulfuron). All three of those products selectively control all three types of sedge weeds in St. Augustinegrass lawns, that is, the two perennial rhizomatous species purple nutsedge (Cyperus rotundus) and green kyllinga (Kyllinga brevifolius), and bunch sedges (mostly annual Cyperus species).

For bermudagrass control in St. Augustinegrass there is nothing effective and nothing that is labelled. In fact, almost anything that damages the bermudagrass will also damage St. Augustinegrass and release the bermudagrass to grow back stronger than ever.

quote:Originally posted by mwcole83:Hello all,

New to the forum, but have been reading past posts and feel this is a good place to get established and find good information.

I am having issues with Nutsedge and Bermuda weeds showing up and spreading in my lawn which is Floratam. Below is a little background history of my lawn and corrective actions I have taken. I have somewhat of a green thumb, but chemicals and fertilizers are still new to me. I now live in Southwest Florida.

The Low Down:I established a new lawn roughly 1 year ago by killing off the preexisting weed lawn with spray, waited 2 weeks, raked up dead stuff, sprayed again, then tilled up the top 3 inches of ground and sprayed again. Sorry if that’s overkill but wanted to be sure the bad stuff was gone as much as possible.

After that I laid down floratam sod, purchased directly from a sod farm, beautiful lush condition, cut that day and delivered. After about 4 months it had filled in nicely and still looked amazing. At that point I hired a lawn care company to take care of the fertilization and pest/weed/fungus/control. About 2 month after that things started to go downhill and continued.

Now I have a lawn that has several large spots devastated by take all root rot and on top of that I am seeing a lot of Nutsedge and Burmuda grass coming up and spreading. I realize the weeds are probably due to the fact my lawn is not strong from the take all root rot.

I have gotten ride of the lawn care company, and established a new one a month ago and am staying on top of what they put down and treat the lawn with. So far they seem to be doing a decent job but told me what they use will not do much for the Nutsedge and Bermuda. They have also sprayed several fungicide types to help with the take all root rot, which has seemed to stop spreading but I can tell is still active in the already bad spots, so spreading could come back up.

In response, I have taken measures to combat the take all root rot by recently, (3 weeks ago), adjusting the watering time length and frequency to help dry out the soil. I have also had the lawn aerated this past week and just had potassium/nitrogen laid down. I have also taken over the maintenance of the lawn to ensure its being mowed more frequently and at a better height, (4″) to help promote its health.

Wanting to know what can be sprayed or put down to help combat the Nutsedge and Bermuda weeds. please take in mind the lawn is weak from the fungus and don’t want to stress it out to much. My main goals are to get it healthy again and take care of the weed problem before it gets too out of hand. If anyone has any ideas to help the fungus as well that would be great.

Thanks in advance for the help and sorry for the long post..

Michael