I think your looking at something other than crabgrass. Crabgrass in your area, if it has germinated already, would only be a single leaf or two.Your preemergent app should be fine it needs half an inch of rain/irrigation to get into the soil and once it gets there it is pretty immobile in the soil.

It's NOT crabgrass, it's probably pasture-type tall fescue or annual ryegrass.

I'm down in Raleigh zone 7 and it just germinated here a week or so ago, most are single leaf (very tiny)

Took some photos. Hope this helps the diagnosis.

Thanks for the responses so far.

This post was edited by smyler3 on Mon, May 5, 14 at 21:31

Another pic

A Bigger clump

And a few that I pulled up yesterday.

Thanks.

That's looks suspiciously like something you're better off not knowing/thinking/worrying about as you really cant do much about it...

Aw, come on doc give it to me straight. I can take it.You make it sound like I'm doomed to some kind of alien invasion or terminal disease.

The Jonathan Green guys said it looks like perennial rye. Is that what you were thinking?

Kinda looks like what we call "wire grass" ...if it has long runners under the ground, there's not much you can do about it. You can kill as much as you want but until you get ALL the runners from underground it will come back every time... even a small piece will spread like crazy in the summer. BUT, this may not be it...

I think it's Tall Fescue. Check this link to help you determine. http://www.turf.uiuc.edu/weed_web/

I believe wire grass is another name for coastal bermuda. It only grows near the Gulf of Mexico.

That's definitely not crabgrass. It is going to be difficult to eradicate since it is a grassy weed growing in grass. Grass killers are going to kill both. Dealing with it might involve some tough love where you kill it and a little bit of the Black Beauty. But then you reseed with more Black Beauty and life goes on.