By DoMyOwn staff
Hands down the biggest problem in the Turf Type Tall Fescue at DoMyOwn Headquarters is Doveweed. In this video, Paul will go over what Doveweed is, the best ways to keep it out of your yard, and if it is in your yard, how to get rid of it. He will talk about the best active ingredients to control Doveweed in the yard.
It's time to wage war on the next problem in our turf here at DMO headquarters. But before we do all of that, I figured it would be nice to get some good aerial shots with the drone just to get a birds eye view of where we're currently at.
Pretty sure I already showed this before but the biggest problem we have in our turf here at the office, is this right here. Doveweed! I mean this right here, is taking up probably a good third of our lawn.
And hopefully we'll get a bonus out of today's application and get control of some other weeds like this right here. Believe this is goose grass, Virginia Button-weed and hopefully it will zap the rest of our Nut sedge out of the turf. That last post emergent that we used did a good job, as you can see. Really wilted and yellowed it up, and put a major dent into it, but hopefully what we're going to spray today will just knock it completely out.
So let's dive in and talk about Doveweed so that we can educate ourselves and understand what it is we're up against today.
Now Doveweed is a summer annual weed that belongs to the day flower family. It's another one of those weeds that's very common in both residential and commercial lawns like ours back here.
There's two main things that help Doveweed thrive. Number one the seeds are going to germinate in late spring when your soil temps are between 65 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. And that's a problem because most pre emergents barriers that were put down between February and March are starting to wear off, thus lowering the chance of some kind of control of Doveweed.
And number two, it can be hard to pinpoint and identify Doveweed because the leaves can be confused with actual turf grass, like St. Augustine or Centipede. So yeah, most people are going to have a hard time identifying it until it really starts to take hold of their lawn like ours back here. It's just choking the life out of our Turf Type Tall Fescue.
The way you can identify Doveweed is by their thick shiny rubbery textured leaves. The Doveweed plant stems, they creep, so when you mow over them, they break which helps the spread to other areas in the turf.
Another thing that helps Doveweed thrive is areas that are really wet or have a ton of moisture.
So if you are over watering or you have drainage issues, like what we got along the sidewalk right here. This is where a large chunk of the Doveweed is at because we have a slight leak in our sprinkler system and water shut off valve right there. Prime conditions for Doveweed to thrive.
So all the more reason to make and stick to an irrigation schedule so you can monitor how much water your turf is actually getting.
Another way to control Doveweed is with proper mowing. If you mow low and to frequently that's going to help it thrive. So you got to make sure you know the proper mowing height for your turf and only cut off a third of the leaf blade but also make sure you get good ground coverage. Easy right?
As with most weeds, it's easier to control Doveweed before it emerges. So a really good active ingredient to put down to get control of Doveweed before it pops up into the turf is Atrazine. And you should apply Atrazine right before or soon after Doveweed emerges to get maximum control of it.
If you're looking to control Doveweed after it emerges, or post emergent, like what we're trying to do, products containing two four d or Dicamba, are going to do a really good job of knocking it back. Just know that you're going to have to do multiple apps and possibly work in another active ingredient or another herbicide to really get good control of it.
So the post emergent that we're using today has four different active ingredients in it. It's got two four d, Mecoprop-p, Dicamba, and Sulfentrazone in it. SO yeah, that should, that should put a nice little dent in the Doveweed in the front.
Now if the Doveweed is really bad and it's just taking over, I'd say 90 percent of your turf, you might have to go with a total vegetation killer to wipe it all out and reseed or re-sod the lawn later on in the future.
Our post emergent, on the label it says I need one point two ounces per thousand square feet to control Doveweed, so, let's get mixing and let's get spraying.
Done!
Per the label it says a second app can be applied 30 days out from the first and quit honestly, I really hope that's not the case. And here's why. We need to start thinking about and everyone that's got a cool season turf need to start thinking about aerating and over seeding.
If I wait 30 days out from when we put this application down, we're going to be towards the end of August, beginning of September, so I really want to try and get my aerating and overseeding done towards the beginning of September for this turf so the last thing I want to do, throw out seeds and have to spray for our Doveweed again. So, we'll just have to wait and see. I'm hoping this application really puts a good dent into the problem.
We'll just have to wait and see! Doveweed seeds, they're pretty tough. They can survive in the soil for many years, which means it might take two, maybe even three years of continual treatment to really knock it out of the yard. Herbicides are going to help with that but the end goal here is to promote healthy turf. That's what were aiming for. We got to harm the soil a little bit now to get rid of the weeds and the bad stuff that we don't want so that our Turf Type Tall Fescue can thrive.
So that's where we're at. Like I said we need to start getting into the mindset of Fall. It really is right around the corner. You need to start thinking about pre emergents and planning out when you're going to put those down, or like what we're going do aerate and overseed. It's really right around the corner. It's not that far off. So start thinking about those things now.
Links to all the products in this video are in the description box below so you can go to do my own dot com read more about them. If you have any other questions about what we talked about in this video, leave those in the comments section, email the customer service staff or pick up the phone, give us a call!
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And as always, thanks for watching!
