How do you get rid of crabgrass?

[dodge trucker]

as title says/ besides to Roundup/burndown the whole yard, retill and reseed?
my yard starts out beautiful in spring and within 2 months the crabgrass invades me and IDK how the "good" grass can return in the next spring? I have done the preventer in early spring and heavy 2,4D after it takes over... this crap laughs at 2,4D.

[Tom Dowling]

find a sod farmer ask them what they do/use

[J-Mech]

2-4-D won't touch crabgrass. It's a grass, not a broadleaf. 2-4-D is a broadleaf killer.

Interseed the yard, with minimal till. Something like an plug aerator will work. There are special planters that are made to interseed grass in existing sod. You might be able to rent one. They have a disrupter bar that can be run at an angle, so it tears up some of the top layer of soil, then has a drop seeder above them, and a tamper on the back. (I just think the seeder is cool is why I brought it up, and because I want you to know there are tools for interseeding grass in existing sod.)

Depending on what type of grass you have, you may be mowing it too short also. Crabgrass isn't a perennial. It's an annual, so it goes to seed, and dies in the fall. Best way to stop it is to get the soil condition where crabgrass doesn't like it. Crabgrass likes acidic soils. Most likely, you need AG lime on your lawn.

Here is some more reading for you if you want:

https://www1.maine.gov/dacf/php/gotp...ss-cornell.pdf

http://extension.illinois.edu/lawnta...home_lawns.cfm

[CC2140]

I am in Michigan and starting in March, I start applying 12-12-12 to my lawn every two weeks, along with gypsum and lyme (I have clay). You may not need the gypsum. the triple 12 goes right to the roots, I also apply this in the fall for winter food. As a result the root system becomes so thick it chokes the weeds out. I put ZERO weed killer on my lawn and my neighbors have weeds, but my grass chokes it out. What does make it in outside of crab grass, I just have a spray bottle of weed killer and it lasts me all summer.

Once I hit May I do one application a month till the end of June, then I am done till October & November.

[j4c11]

In case anyone is still interested in this:

Crabgrass is an annual and so it's easy to control by disrupting the seed germination. The big box store pre-emergent is wimpy, super-expensive and needs to be re-applied about every 3 months. Get yourself a jug of prodiamine off Amazon for ~$55 and spray at recommended rates. Not only is it super effective, it's about 50 times less expensive per thousand than home improvement store stuff.

Prodiamine will take care of 99.5% of the crabgrass before it germinates. There will still be some where animals dig and the pre-emergent barrier gets broken. For that, you will need a bottle of quinclorac and a bottle or methylated seed oil. Quinclorac/MSO is very very effective on crabgrass.

Once you disrupt the seed cycle for 2-3 years, you can even skip a year or two o the pre-emergent since the seed bank has been exhausted.

[KayakDon]

TENACITY. find it on Amazon. It works wonders on crab grass and the dreaded Creeping Bent grass. Kinda expensive, but you only use a teaspoon in 2 gallons of water in your tank sprayer.

[dodge trucker]

Got something to try if we ever get any rain. Whole yard is burnt up, but before it got that way I went around the borders with a dose of round up, 2nd time doing that this year seems like the crabgrass came back worse after the 1st go round with the round up. Have a power rake that I have been wanting to play with, in talking to some local spray guys and a chemlawn guy they suggested some quinchlorac ao I got some from Amazon along with some mso surfactant so it sticks to the blade a while, but I don't want to do that untill after we have had some rain,
I figured I'd hit the yard with that and then a couple of weeks later hit it with the power rake and then overseed pop it sometime this fall. This is by far the worst year for crabgrass and it seems like I got all my neighbors share for this season on top of what I usually get.
And for the above post I thought 12-12-12 was a type of fertilizer, which you say you haven't applied. If you put down 12-12-12 then yeah you did.

[ol'George]

I was always glad for the crab grass as it provided the cows with something to eat, after the pasture burned up in late July/August
Same thing for the lawn, neighbors grass is plum brown, my weeds/crabby grass is green.
yep it likes acidic soil, especially in the pasture.
-------Natures way of fixing things

[Alvy]

Originally Posted by dodge trucker

And for the above post I thought 12-12-12 was a type of fertilizer, which you say you haven't applied. If you put down 12-12-12 then yeah you did.

He said he hasn’t applied any weed killer. He feeds his existing grass 12-12-12 fertilizer and claims the regular healthy grass root system ends up choking out the crab grass because of it.