I searched and couldn't find anything, so please don't yell at me.

I'm undoing years of brainwashing by well meaning neighbors and Home Depot stock managers that have the shelves PACKED with pre emergent crabgrass control this time of year.....In Arkansas.....

I've never had to battle winter weeds since this is my first winter of having a REAL lawn. Is there any use for winter pre-emergents down here?

Down there? Maybe. Up north, no...and then again yes. P. annua is incredibly tenacious stuff and has a nasty tendency to sprout when soil temperatures flirt with fifty (I've seen the stuff do it). Having a good layer of pre-M down for fall and winter is a must in Pennsylvania, at least on my lawn.

For you folks, the fall perennial season is coming up, so the things that'll fall sprout and last over the winter is longer than ours, and more delicate stuff would survive your winters (many fall sprouters don't particularly care for our 10 degree weather in February).

Crabgrass, no, but most pre-emergents are good for many things.

I agree. Our spring wild flowers sprout when the weather cools off and we get the rainstorms in late summer/early fall. They sprout and remain essentially dormant until the weather warms up in the spring. Then they become full sized plants and flowers. In other words, weeds.

If you want to apply a fall preemergent, the time to apply is right after the extended rainstorms. These afternoon summer showers that we're getting now are not rainstorms. I'm talking about cold front type rainstorms that pound you all day long or for several days.

What type pre M is good for my area?

I'm seeing I need to brush up on my weeds.

So far all I really know is crabgrass and nutsedge.LOL!

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Dchall_San_Antonio wrote:
If you want to apply a fall preemergent, the time to apply is right after the extended rainstorms.

When you say "after", do you mean after they start coming through is the time to put it down? Because these type rains continue most of our winter with the passing of each cold front.

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Hi Michael. When the rains first start, that is the time. For us in South Texas, NOW IS THE TIME. We got some scattered showers starting 2 weeks ago but they were very light. Now we're getting more serious rain every other day. Today we're getting rain all day and a tropical storm is coming. So I'm going out today to get some corn gluten meal. I don't think it is all that effective but I never had the timing down before this year. I have been working out of town for 4 years and this year I'm home, so I'm trying to do things I know I'm supposed to at the right time. Other than that I don't know what preem to suggest.

How high are you mowing? If you are mowing very low you shouldn't have much of a weed problem in bermuda.

I gotcha. It is probably about right for us, too. We've had one little weak cold front try to come through, but it was lack luster.

I am mowing too high. That is on the top of the to-do list for spring.

I don't have any out of control weed problems right now since this is the first year of the sod. I just want to avoid any.

The only thing that worries me is a nutsedge problem that I bought with the sod. Is there a pre M that works on it? I've learned so much in the last few weeks, I would have thrown those pieces to the side instead. I have some MSMA that has worked very well in the few places I tested. I'll work on that next year as well.

So I would like to use a pre emergent. Don't know what kind yet, I'm going to see what Lesco recommends fer around here.

My question is, right now I have been working on my soil. I limed just over 2 weeks ago and put out a 20-27-5 starter fertilizer.

I plan on putting out sulfate of potash, copper sulfate, borax, and milorganite this weekend.

Can I put out the pre emergent with those things?

Or do I need to get some time in between the applications?

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Nothing there will interact, so that's fine, although I might wait for one good rainfall just to be sure.

As for what pre-M to use, I'm clueless.