Fall Pre-Emergent - What and When?

GA

FALL

When temperatures drop to 65-70° F at night, apply preemergence herbicides to control winter annual weeds such as annual bluegrass, henbit and common chickweed. Recommended dates are August 15 to September 15 in north Georgia and September 1 to 15 in south Georgia.

SPRING

Apply herbicides to control summer annual weeds such as crabgrass and goosegrass prior to soil temperatures reaching 55° F. Recommended dates are March 1 to 20 in north Georgia and February 15 to March 15 in south Georgia.

LINK

Prodiamine, Dimension (dithopyr), Simazine, Specticle (pricey)

each have their pros and cons. I have used them all and by and large been happy with them all. These and others are discussed in the linked article.

I’d suggest Prodiamine or Dimension if you are new to using pre-emergents. Both a available in spray or granular formulations.

ETA: better to err on the side of applying too early than too late, so don’t miss your optimal window of application.

My bad -link fixed.

Then I might suggest Dimension (dithopyr) in granular form. I don’t think you can get it at Lowes, not sure about Tractor Supply, but check their websites. Individual stores differ in what they carry.

Good retail garden centers often have Dimension it as a Fertilome/Hi Yield product. LINK.

I purchase Dimension, Prodiamine, fertlizers, etc from Site One Landscape Supply - their pricing is excellent, you can check to see if you have one near you - there are only 2 in Louisiana, and I happen to live 10 min from one.

Nice thing about Dimension if you miss your application window by a little in spring it has post-emergent activity on very young crabgrass. I literally eliminated crabgrass in my lawn in 2 years using Dimension. It also does a very good job on annual bluegrass (Poa), etc as does Prodiamine, simiazine, ….

I use greencastonline.com to track soil temp. When the 5 day average is getting close to 70F I’ll be putting down the pre em.

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I've got a mess of Virginia buttonweed and that small, woody clover.

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MSM turf or Celsius will take care of VBW and lespedeza

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What and when do you spray for yard stickers that pop up in the spring? I always seem to miss it.

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Lawn burweed. Winter annual weed. LINK

You can apply Simazine as a pre-emergent as stated in the article, but the problem is to my knowledge you can only buy Simazine in 2 gallon quantities and you only need a little bit to treat a lawn.

Trimec and Weed Free Zone work (Trimec + carfentrazone) or a winter cocktail of Weed Free Zone + Atrazine work well in my experience to kill it when young. The key is to scout your yard and spray the weeds when very small, say Jan/Feb, before the stickers form. As shown in the posted fact sheet they look like little parsley plants.

CrawDude, on the website you posted, they have a Summer Broadleaf Lawn Kit. Just moved in a new house, and I'm new to lawn care. Would that Southern Lawn Kit be a good starter kit? Like most of the people that are posting about their yards, I'm having trouble with VBW, and possibly some root rot.

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CrawDude, on the website you posted, they have a Summer Broadleaf Lawn Kit. Just moved in a new house, and I'm new to lawn care. Would that Southern Lawn Kit be a good starter kit? Like most of the people that are posting about their yards, I'm having trouble with VBW, and possibly some root rot.

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Honestly, I think the best thing is just to follow this board, read the posts associated with lawn care, and learn from it as many of us have. Post any questions you have, include photos when appropriate and one or more of us are going to give you good advice as you learn the ropes. Some posters such as ronk do this for a living, others of us just have decent knowledge of the subject either by technical background or having learned via the school of hard knocks (or both).

Start by providing your general location or city and the type of lawn grass(es) you have if you know the different grass types. Location helps with timing of applications and often suggesting businesses that carry the chemicals and fertlizers you’ll need. Not all herbicides are compatible with the 4 main southern lawn grasses so it’s essential to know what type of lawn grass you have.

As to your specific question on VBW, to start I’d suggest MSM Turf to use in this heat and it is compatible with the 4 warm season lawn grasses. Celsius is another excellent selective herbicide compatible with the warm season lawn grasses but the initial price is high, but eventually you likely come around to buying it b/c it’s so effective on so many problematic lawn weeds and a bottle will usually last several years.

As to take all root rot, post clear photos, including close ups, for confirmation. Since it’s a new house to you, check to see if you have good drainage in your yard, and if not, you’ll likely need to take steps on improving drainage, etc.

And you should pay attention to threads on fall and spring pre-emergent herbicides, and consider using them to reduce your need for post emergent herbicide weed control. Won’t do anything to help with VBW, a perennial weed, or root rot (fungal disease) but will help immensely with reducing (not eliminating) many annual winter and spring weeds you are sure to encounter.

CrawDad would you give thumbs up or down to this right now in CenLA? Centipede
The Anderson's 18-0-4 Fertilizer with 0.426 Barricade Herbicide

Madisonville, La
Yard does have good drainage for the most part
I believe this is St. Aug?

I plan on putting down some MSM Turf, anything else I'm needing to do now, to have a better looking yard next spring?

Thank you for the response, CrawDude!