Spring is finally here and local area lawn and landscape cleanups are now well underway.
Within the scope of my seasonal responsibilities as a professional turfgrass manager, I continue to wrestle with the benefit (if any) of applying a granular crabgrass prevention herbicide before a mechanical based spring cleanup is performed.
I realize that crabgrass seed, amongst many other undesirable grassy and broadleaf weed seed, exist viably in the soil today. Weed seed is forever ready to grow! Relentlessly waiting for open soil, moisture and warming conditions to occur, to take over dedicated turfgrass real estate, inch-by-inch.
Our overall weed control strategy continues to revolve around prevention (whenever/wherever possible). Maintaining a dense stand of grass, thereby choking out new weed seed from ever finding the opportunity to grow.
However, with that said, a spring cleanup, not to mention power raking (mechanical dethatching of lawn), with all the blowing and manual raking of both lawn and soil involved, will certainly disturb/break the intended aforementioned granular herbicidal crabgrass prevention barrier, rendering it insufficient.
My solution is to simply wait a few days (or weeks) until your spring cleanup and any/all mechanical soil disturbing services have been completed before applying a crabgrass prevention herbicide to your lawn. Actually, one additional tip would be to use a premium crabgrass prevention herbicide that also provides post-emergent control of crabgrass. This way, using a premium crabgrass preventer, like Dimension, will provide for excellent crabgrass control, even if applied late spring, after germination has occurred.
Please be sure to contact our team here at Pacocha Landscaping Services, Inc. with any questions or lawn service requests you may have. We greatly appreciate your time and look forward to helping improve your lawn and landscape any way possible. Have a great day!
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