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mcmars_gw

short crabgrass infestation in 7b moab, ut problem

mcmars
9 years ago

I love this site from tractor repair, fruit trees to lawns. I have a major crabgrass infestation happening now as a result of neglectful tenants failing to fulfill their lease obligation last summer and mow grass in a timely manner and letting the short crabgrass seed all summer onto my yard. I have mostly the Bonzai tall fescue I planted 12 years ago and then annual overseeding of whatever fescue seed I could obtain locally, I know now that I should probably avoid the hardware /big box store grass seeds for lots of reason w info I have read from this great forum. I have a unique situation as I flood irrigate my mostly organic lawn, fruit trees and garden w my irrigation water like the old timers do using dikes and berms and such. The water comes every 5 days on a regular schedule and has resulting in a very lush productive yard and garden with many large shade and fruit trees and more produce than a gal can even give away, actually sold bunch of produce last summer at farmers market.

I am in Moab, ut in zone 7b and the irrigation helps temper the typical hot dry summers as well as the early and late freezes so I can have lush apricots, cherries, gourmet fragile lettuce, etc when no body else in town can grow these things successfully. I also make my own rich compost, this year w aged horse manure and have a garden filled w leopard frogs, garden snakes and mushrooms, all in the desert, pretty cool.

Here is my lawn problem. I manually removed zillions of short crabgrass plants last season as much as I could, even applied the Halt pre emergent herbicide a month ago when it was time appropriate. However, due to the
HUGE seed load of the crabgrass seed ( up to 150,000 seeds per adult plant I read) and the extreme invasive nature of this CG weed species, I am estimating that the front yard which has the most light and favors the CG growth habits is 30-40% young CG seedlings intermixed with the other mostly tall fescue turf grass at this time. I have mowed 5 time this season to help encourage the fescue to grow progressively raising the mower height as I understand the taller grass results in a larger fescue root system as well as helping to shade out the CG seeds from germinating as they are not very shade tolerant. I am trying to hand pick the young CG seedlings now w roots and all as I know I have a small window of opportunity to try manual weed control techniques at this time before I get into the CG seed stage of their life history. the area involved is maybe 50 ft by 30 ft so about 1500 sq ft, the worst area.

I have not mowed for about 10 days, trying to let the fescue take off and get about 4 inches in height, the CG seedlngs are about 6-7 inches and the pull out real easy now, just so much of it. I have been dumping a wheel barrow of the super dry aged horse manure, some fish emulsion and powdered kelp into the large bathtub sized hole my irrigation water comes out of the day prior to my every 5 day irrigation day to make a compost tea to richen the fescue growth and quite frankly to go ahead and encourage the CG to seed out now rather than have constant "time bombs" of CG seeding all summer as we are in the main growth phase now as apposed to the hot 105 degree days to come later in late june, july and august, when the fescues will slow their growth and the CG will be going crazy and seeding everywhere.

Not sure if I am doing the right thing or if I should just give up and skip my flood for a few weeks, spray round up, endanger my fruit trees in the yard, reseed from scratch and water w residential water on timers or do stay on my course here and hire help to spend maybe 20 hours to manually pull the small CG now w this " window of opportunity" before I get into the seeding phase of the CG life history/growth cycle.

I am pretty smart about this w a Biology background in environmental, population and evolutionary biology degree Univ ot Texas, 5 years of biological research engineer work at UT propagating plants, tropical butterflys, snakes, mice to feed the snakes, ants, flies, bacteria, etc as well as growing edible medicinal mushrooms and ironically being an invasive weed control specialist in two counties of western colorado using chemical, manual and biological methods to controll invasive weeds.

So which way do I go, start over now, round up reseed or continue my manual plan? Not best time to reseed, but not the worst if I do it next week or so, I could maybe prevent this years seed load from being distributed onto the yard and prevent the same problem for next season??

What would be best choice and good source to order seed for either reseeding or overseeding. Looking for tall turf type fecscue (blend), maybe something w lots of symbiotic endophyte fungus ( no livestock) to assist/support the fescue root system, able to tolerate 110 highs in july august to below zero temp extremes, would be able to compete well w the invasive weeds that are prolific here in moab, would enjoy the every 5 day heavy watering of my irrigation and all the other favorable charcteristic I would want for a yard.

Lastly tips on documenting and dealing w probable future court legal battle w deadbeat tenanats on their way out end of May as the hav violated the lease ageement regarding, "Tenants shall maintain and irrigate lawn, shrubs and fruit trees" according to the lease agreement they signed a year ago w me. Any lawyers out there? I really think that is pretty cut and dry, I have never had to deal w CG invasion in 12 years here as prior rents did mow the grass as required rather than let weeds go to seed. But then again, my word against there word, no picture proof of the last season weed problem, some texting thou to complain they were letting weeds go to seed. I also did law enforcement for & years, and understand the court system is very flawed and the utah renter laws favor the tenants right over landlord right, very frustrating situation now w hostile tenants who shift blame and fail to take responsibility for their neglect to my property. Had cops out last night to give 5 day notice to their roommate they brought in who has been threating and hostile to me personally, brought in illegal cat and allowed my basement to be flooded all winter due him messing w my bath fixture, etc, etc. Hopefully he will leave in 5 days according to the law, got a full plate her of problems. thx for any help and advice. Off to go make repairs, clean and document damage to my rental from their neglect and lack of consideration and lease compliance.

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