Anyone have any suggestions for getting rid of this stuff? The chemicals that are used to treat my lawn don't affect the Dallisgrass. I would use chemicals that do, but they would kill the grass as well.

I tried digging a couple of the bigger ones up, but the roots systems on them are bigger than I thought and a pain to dig up. The smaller ones are a pain to get out also.

I didn't really want to just mow over them and spread the seeds everywhere. At this point, I was just going to cut off the stems to get rid of the seeds and mow over them to keep them short.

Suggestions please..........


***edit for more info - I forgot to mention that I have newly placed San Augustine sod (~3 months). I have heard that once the grass gets thick it will "choke" out these weeds. Any thoughts?


[This message has been edited by madams (edited 4/29/2009 1:43p).]

(I don't really know what I'm talking about, so take this with a grain of salt)

I bet you'd get good results from keeping it cut short and waiting for the St. Augustine to choke it out. As long as you keep it cut short enough that it can't produce seed heads I don't see how it can spread.

Ask the Agronomist(TM) says .....

I really don;t know of but 2 waqys to get Dallisgrass out of augustine:

1. Water and pull. It is a bugger, but a good soaking helps yank it out of the ground.

2. If you can stand it, wait until the seedheads start to stick up, then get a sponge/paper towel and soak in Roundup. Wipe the seedheads with the straight Roundup, and wait 5-7 days (the longer the better - 10 even) before mowing.

quote:

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Immediate control: Dallisgrass is difficult to control. Spot treat actively growing plants in early spring or summer with an herbicide containing glyphosate. Repeat the treatment two more times at intervals of seven days. The area will have to be reestablished with desireable grass after control is achieved.

Prevention: Dallisgrass is usually less of a problem in lawns mowed frequently at a short height.

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Their root systems are huge and really strong. I used to have a problem with it in my front yard. I dug them up and filled in the holes with top soil. The grass would fill it in in a few weeks.

Bummer. I had some dallis in a bermuda lawn once. Dug up the big patches and used roundup on the little patches and regrowth. The roundup burned my bermuda, but it came back. St. Augustine likely won't recover from being sprayed with roundup. Looks like you'll be on hands and knees as The Agronomist recommends.

I can confirm that herbicide is most effective when you let the dallis get tall.

[This message has been edited by 89FordAg (edited 4/29/2009 4:20p).]

Thanks for the input so far guys.

quote:

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2. If you can stand it, wait until the seedheads start to stick up, then get a sponge/paper towel and soak in Roundup. Wipe the seedheads with the straight Roundup, and wait 5-7 days (the longer the better - 10 even) before mowing.

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I assume doing this won't kill the grass around it....? If not, it sounds good to me. Many of them are decent size and have seedheads already.

Was your new sod placed over existing dallas grass or was it brought in with the sod? If it was brought in with the new sod I would have a serious problem with whoever placed or supplied the sod.

Ask the Agronomist (TM) says ...

Roundup only kills the grass it touches. If you only wipe the Dallisgrass seed stalks, that's all it will kill.

mowing doesn't do anything. I play golf in Calvert and dallis grass in many of the fairways, repeated mowing and just made it grow more prostrate.

I've been fighting 2 small patches, all this rain made it a lot easier to dig up today.

1. sodcutter and/or shovel
2. resod

To have it on a golf course is a sin. MSMA will take it out of bermuda, but will unfortunately tear St. Augustine apart along with the Dallisgrass.

sodcutter

resod

Otherwise you will be dealing with it for quite a while.

Roundup will translocate throughout the plant. It may take 406 weeks for the plant to really start breaking doen, but one it really dies, it can be much more easily pulled up and the augustine will then move on in. That method has always worked for me.

***Update***

I took me about 2-3 nights after work this week, but I went around the yard and picked all the small to medium sized Dallisgrass I could find. I sprayed the larger ones with Roundup while holding a towel around the plant so the Roundup didn't spray all over the grass next to it.

Hopefully this will get rid of what is currently in the yard and my grass can thicken to prevent this problem from happening again.

I believe what started this problem is that before the builder placed the sod, there was plently of Dallisgrass already on our lot that had already taken root. The lots next to mine have a ton of this stuff, so I took the liberty to spray most of them with Roundup as well.




[This message has been edited by madams (edited 5/1/2009 1:30p).]

One thing that I do in areas that are really heavily infested with weeds is to bag the grass. If you have seeds on your weeds, and mulch the grass you're just spreading the weeds all over.