By DoMyOwn staff
Learn how to prevent common weeds with fall pre-emergent herbicides.
Hi I’m Kyle with DoMyOwn.com. Are you looking to get ahead of weeds and jump start your lawn care? Well, when it comes to weed prevention and control during the Fall months, you can stop those common weeds before they start with fall pre-emergent herbicides.
If you live in areas that have scorching hot summers, like here in Georgia, your lawn has just made it through the brutal summer heat. As the weather cools down, hitting that sweet spot for your application between summer and fall is crucial for year-long weed control. Let’s get into some basics about fall pre-emergent herbicides. As a refresher, pre-emergent as the name suggests… prevents weeds from appearing before they emerge from soil. This reduces any time and effort removing them because… well, you’ve already gotten ahead of it.
Winter annual weeds like poa annua, chickweed, and henbit can be prevented with a fall pre emergent herbicide. Let’s talk about one of the most common weeds our customers deal with: poa annua. Post emergent control of poa annua can be more difficult, especially with cool season lawns, so timing of pre emergent herbicides labeled for poa annua in the fall are crucial to see success for the next season. While there are many popular herbicides on the market today, In the fall, some popular active ingredients are pendimethalin, prodiamine, and isoxaben.Those are most effective on the type of winter annuals we just talked about. As always, make sure to check your product label for specific application rates and instructions and to make sure you’re applying at the rates recommended on the label.
Timing is critically important when it comes to lawn care. Fall pre-emergent herbicides are typically applied between the months of August and November. In southern regions, you might apply in the beginning of September. In some of the Northern regions, you might need to begin to apply in August. We recommend that our customers do a split application for year-long control. This is where you split your pre-emergent applications into multiple treatments at lower rates. This will allow you to get ahead of your weeds all year long. For example, you might do your first application, then, 5-10 weeks later, and based on your label’s recommendation; you can do a second application.
It’s important to note that application depends on soil temperatures in your area for specific timing, not air temperatures. You should apply in the late summer and early fall as temperatures begin falling and aim to have the first application down before the soil temperatures hit 70 degrees for optimal weed prevention. Additional applications can be applied before the first frost. In the spring, you’ll apply before soil temperatures reach 55 degrees. So youve determined what weeds you might have dealt with in the past and purchased that pre emergent.
How do I apply my fall pre-emergent? This depends on if you are using a granular or a liquid product and calibration of your lawn equipment. We've made several videos and articles for you on how to calibrate your spreader or sprayer, specifics of application, and all that will be linked below. It's not uncommon for customers like you to have some summer annual weeds that may have been missed by your spring treatment.
These are weeds like crabgrass, chamberbitter, spurge, and more. In these situations, its best to use a post emergent weed killer herbicide. When it comes to post emergent weed killers, you might need to do a spot treatment if you have a lawn that has been heat stressed by summer and spray just the weeds you have, or wait until the cooler months when fall pre-emergents are normally used to do a blanket application which is spraying your entire lawn.
We also have a variety of lawn care videos and articles to help keep your lawn beautiful year-round. And that’s it! We hope you have a great lawn care season this year! Please subscribe to see more content and tell us what you’d like to see more of! Make sure to visit Do My Own dot com to shop for your lawn care and pest control needs and feel free to contact us with questions- Thanks for watching!
