We treat the golf course every year
with a pre-emergent crabgrass prevention chemical and in the past couple years it
has only proven to be only marginally effective. We also have a product that can treat the
crabgrass after it has emerged but we can only achieve success with this
chemical if it is used when the plants are very small and just appearing in the
grass canopy sometime in late June.
I realize that crabgrass is very
ugly and no one wants to see it on the golf course. Unfortunately, there is not much we can do to
the mature plants without hurting the bentgrass this time of year. What we can do is re-evaluate our spray program
and make some changes for next year. We
have a plan to spray a split application of pre-emergent herbicide next spring
to increase the window of time the chemical can be effective; we also plan on
using a post-emergent herbicide product to kill anything that comes through in
June/early July. I feel that this
strategy will yield much better result than we are currently experiencing.
The crabgrass will soon be turning
purple when we get some cooler nights.
Then it will slowly fade back into the turf canopy and out of
sight. The seeds will stay dormant in
the soil until the soil temperatures start to rise again in the Spring. This is when we can start to wage the battle
against the crabgrass. It will be a
never ending fight but I think that with the proper tactics in place we can
make a large difference next year.
Thanks,
Josh Laughridge
