Toxic stuff. Have fun with it.

Is there a question here?

Sorry, yes. My question is will the Atrazine kill off the rye and not hurt the Bermuda.

I thought it only works on st augustine?

I am a little nervous answering your question, but yes Atrazine if used properly will kill the Rye and do minimal damage to the Bermuda.

Professional Lawn care and Landscape companies do use Atrazine to kill off the Rye in spring. However they use a professional grade liquid product precisely mixed and applied. To little and no result, a little too much and you severely damage the Bermuda grass The other thing if Atrazine is used, you should not use any pre-emergence for 8 weeks.

Lou is half right Atrazine is the pre and post emergence product used on SA, but if used correctly it can be used on Bermuda to kill off Rye, Fescue, and a number of other weeds.

I do not suggest a homeowner try it with consulting a pro, or better yet hire a pro to do it that is bonded and insured.

Isn't it way too late to be using it? Isn't bermuda supposed to be dormant first and I don't imagine it ever went dormant in New Orleans.

I don't mind hearing that I can mess up with a poor mixing ratio/poor application. I'll leave it alone. I'm not sure if it went dormant, however, it did lose all the green. Below the rye canopy was nothing but brown. It came back in patches and now it is growing.

I guess I can narrow it down to my soil sample results. 7.66 pH and Low Phosphorus. I think that the reel will help as well.

I've dug up for more info... At another lawn forum where it is more detailed... apparently, there are some pros that do not like using it and would rather use round up which is obviously a lot safer. Like I said, atrazine is toxic stuff to use and will kill trees and shrubs close by...

Lou you can only use RU when the Bermuda is still dormant, Atrazine is used after the Bermuda is greening up. You are right there is a risk to shrubs and trees, and you will always pros with different POV.

whoa guys, Atrazine can several damage Bermuda. I not going to say it will kill it because bermuda is pretty dang tough but it is a known fact that you do not use atrazine on bermuda.

Killery Atrazine is used by landscape professionals to kill Rye grass in overseeded Bermuda. That is why I mentioned percise mixing ratios has to be used and carefully applied. IMO a professional job only.

I agree with being very careful. I bought some Image last year for nutsedge (and other weeds) in my bermuda lawn, but I bought the wrong type of Image (the bottles look very similar). The Image I bought says it is for SA lawns and that it contains Atrazine. I used it with my pump-up sprayer, and sprayed it over about 1,000 sf area in my backyard. I also spot sprayed weeds in my front yard. The larger area did not die, but was severely discolored and took several weeks to come back. The spots I sprayed in the front died and I had to wait for the bermuda to spread back into those areas (I encouraged it by putting compost on the bare spots.)

Be very careful or leave it to a pro.

Ok, I guess I should chime in here. I recently put some atrazine down on my princess 77, to kill some winter weeds. (I have ST. A in my front yard, so I use it often) I mixed the atrazine according to the label and had great results. It did not phase the bermuda at all.

I'm not saying it won't damage your lawn, I'm just saying it didn't damage mine.

BTW, I use weed-b-gone now and it works much better on the tougher weeds, not sure if it will work on the rye though.

WBG is designed to kill boradleaf weeds and leave grasses alone, so it should not kill rye, unless they have created a different formulation specifically for that purpose.

Try Weed-B-Gone on Saint Augustine and see what happens? Do you know what little boys do with their wee-wee in the snow?

Same thing I do on neighbors yard with SA when TX looses a footbal game to OU. :>)