Parts of my yard are filled with this weed. Is it crab grass? I have spots with healthy St Augustine but a lot of it is unhappy getting choked out by weeds. This week I put down some fertilizer and am wondering what the best way to approach this. Celsius + Sedgehammer (i also have nutsedge and kylinga) and a good pre emergent (prodiamine?)? I got the irrigation setup to 1-1.5″ weekly.
Central Florida.
by flygplan
10 Comments
There is no current post emergent herbicide labeled for crabgrass in Saint Augustine. It will be going dormant soon once winter arrives. Use a pre emergent in late winter.
Edited to add this link for more info:
https://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/alachuaco/2017/08/23/feeling-crabby-about-crabgrass/
My dad made me pull that shit out by hand when we lived in Pine Hills…1979
Signalgrass?
Looks more like signalgrass than crab grass but it’s all so similar.
Preemergent in a few weeks when it gets cooler and then twice in the spring.
Yup- crabgrass
Tropical signal grass, atrazine with methylated seed oil
Bermuda?
Celsius post emergent (be patient, takes two weeks or so to start browning.)
Prodiamine pre emergent
If you use those two you won’t need to have a name for it for too long, but in the interim I’d call it signalgrass.
It does indeed look like crabgrass or signalgrass. To identify it accurately, you can take a closer look at the leaves. Crabgrass typically has wider, more coarse leaves, while signalgrass has finer, narrower leaves.
As for pre-emergent herbicide, [Prodiamine](https://amzn.to/3LB317w) is a reliable choice. For Central Florida, the best time to apply it is usually in early spring (around February or March). Applying Prodiamine in late winter, in addition to the early spring application, provides an extra layer of protection against weeds that may have different germination periods.
I don’t think that’s crabgrass. Crabgrass usually has a big bunch in the center that it spreads out from and I don’t really see that in these pictures.