When to Spread Crabgrass Preventer

Hi, we have finally started spreading crabgrass preventer! Only one day though :(. Then Kansas shows us its normal spring weather again. It went from 70 on Tuesday, to High wind and snow on Thursday. Do not worry about watering this application in at this point. I think it is still a few weeks before the lawns will be mowed for the first time for spring cleanups. If you will recall we are using Crabgrass preventer with Solu-Cal. Read the previous post to learn about the benefits of Solu-Cal. Remember, Crabgrass Preventer needs to be put on before Crabgrass germinates. People often ask when they should spread crabgrass preventer. That is a hard question. If we have a warm early spring it needs to be put on earlier. You have probably heard the rule of thumb, put crabgrass preventer on before the Red Buds bloom. That is probably ok. That always seems a little on the late side. If you have a protected area on the south side of a brick building, for example, that area may germinate well before the Red Bud’s bloom, because the soil temperatures will be much warmer there. I think a good time would be after you mow your grass for the first time, around the middle of March. Another thought. There are mainly two kinds of crabgrass preventer, Barricade and Dimension. There are different names for these but they all work the same. Barricade is a longer lasting preventer. It is often considered the best choice of the two. Barricade is only a pre-emergent, meaning it will only stop crabgrass before it germinates. Dimension prevents germination but it also will kill very small crabgrass. So Dimension can be used if you are a procrastinator or you just didn’t think of it in time. If you think it is probably too late to spread crabgrass preventer, spread Dimension. Another negative to Dimension is, it does not have quite as good of control later on in the summer when all pre-emergents are running out of umph. Remember, crabgrass preventer stops grass seed from germinating. Not just weedy grass, good grass too. So spring is a poor time to overseed your lawn. If you do overseed, your lawn can not be treated for crabgrass for 6 to 8 weeks and by then crabgrass will likely have germinated. In the next entry, I will attempt to discuss timing of when to cut your grass the first time and how short. So long until next time.

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2014 Newsletter

We are excited to tell you about some new changes for this year. You can see we have included an informational on Solu-Cal. We are able to get this product blended together with Crabgrass Preventer. I believe we are the only company, in the area, using this product. We are continually striving to put together a program that is the best for your lawn. The benefits of Solu-Cal are many. From taking many soil samples in the area we find that the PH of the soil is often high. I don’t think we have ever had one that is too low. The remedy for this is Solu-Cal. Solu-Cal helps neutralize PH. If soil PH is high or too low your lawn is not able to efficiently use the fertilizer that we spread on. Some lawns began to look peaked a few weeks after we spread fertilizer. This often is a sign of PH imbalance rather than a lack of fertilizer. That is why Solu-Cal is targeting the root of the problem instead of spreading more fertilizer and not fixing the long term problem. Solu-Cal is also for aerating soil. In doing that it helps water and oxygen to penetrate the soil better. Gypsum is often used to loosen tight soil. Solu-Cal is enhanced Gypsum meaning it works faster and is longer lasting. Solu-Cal also flushes contaminates, such as salt, out of the soil. As a closing note on Solu-Cal though, as with any soil issue it does take time. To neutralize PH it can take several years. Over time the benefits of Solu-Cal will be easy to observe. Core aeration is a great way to speed up the process. Often when we aerate we spread Solu-Cal after. It falls into the holes where the plugs were removed. That enables it to mix with the soil much sooner than working its way down through the thatch with watering and time.

You will notice too, that we are going from 6 steps back to 5. For the past several years we have been combining the 3^rd and 4^th application for different reasons. Often time’s weather related. A late spring last year caused us to become several weeks off schedule, making it difficult to spread our 3^rd application in June and then come back and spread Grub Preventer around July 4^th. Also we were having some problems with grubs even though we had put preventer down. We are using a much longer lasting Grub Preventer this year. That enables us to spread it earlier and also put down fertilizer with it, while it is still cooler in the late spring.

We are always glad to have your email address so we can send these letters by email. Send an email to windyridgelawn@yahoo.com.

We very much appreciate your business and look forward to serving you again this next year!