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PostPosted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 7:57 am 
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Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2006 1:37 pm
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Location: richland hills,TEXAS
and how can it be killed


I've taken some photos of the weeds I'm fighting right now. I don't now what this weed is put for now I'll call it "scum bag" weed. This bloody weed keeps coming back. I've tried everything.

Ref# in the corner of the photos.....

A - 01 ... shows what the weeds looks like. You can see these weeds popping up above the Bermuda grass. When I cut the lawn, these weeds grow much faster than the grass.

A - 02 ... gives you a close up of the weed mixed in with the Bermuda grass

A - 03 ... shows 3 weeds I pulled

A - 04 ... shows a close up of the weed

A - 05 ... shows a close up of the weed root

Image[/img]


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 Post subject: weeds
PostPosted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 9:18 am 
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Joined: Sat Mar 06, 2004 7:33 am
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Location: Plano & land at Dodd City,TEXAS
Best pictures of NUT GRASS I've ever seen!

Don't think there is an effective nut grass killer invented yet.

Someone said the drought may get it...but then what about the bermuda all around it?

I've pulled it up a million times (or more) sometimes it just dies. You could dab or brush 10% vinegar on each plant. I think it will eventually be smothered by the bermuda. (but maybe not in our lifetime :( :( )

Patty

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 9:28 am 
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Location: richland hills,TEXAS
thanks Patty

I was begining to think this was a quite forum

I'll go ahead and try 10% Vinegar.

thanks again


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PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 2:15 pm 
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Joined: Wed Sep 13, 2006 2:08 pm
Posts: 14
Location: San Angelo,TEXAS
Nutgrass and sedge weeds can be very effectively controlled in most turfgrasses with “SedgeHammer” herbicide (Halosulfuron-methyl), from Gowan. Several treatments may be needed for eventual 100% control, but one treatment will usually knock out 90% - 95% of the nutgrass within a few days.

Not a very organic way of taking out the nutgrass, but it will work very well…

Pulling nutgrass is useless and it will just come back. Even worse, it will continue to spread unless aggressive herbicide treatments are done.

Some folks have tried to use a wick system to dab the nutgrass with glysphosphate (Roundup). The Roundup will give a quick top-kill of the nutgrass, but it will come back in a few weeks.


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 6:01 pm 
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Joined: Wed Dec 31, 1969 6:00 pm
Posts: 8
Location: Richardson,TEXAS
We successfully pulled and dug out all the nutgrass (over a 3 year period) from the front garden beds at my parents' house. We are 100% organic.

It took a lot of time and effort, but the nutgrass did not come back where we pulled it out in the front main beds. We never had any nutgrass grow in the lawn area, which is bermuda with a lot of other weeds. Only the bed area had the nutgrass.

In the side garden beds we never put in the effort to pull it all out, but those beds are a little less manicured anyways. As we built up the health of the soil, I noticed it was a lot easier to pull out the nutgrass successfully (over time).


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 Post subject: thanks for your help...
PostPosted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 1:09 pm 
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Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2006 1:37 pm
Posts: 9
Location: richland hills,TEXAS
Texican wrote:
Nutgrass and sedge weeds can be very effectively controlled in most turfgrasses with “SedgeHammer” herbicide (Halosulfuron-methyl), from Gowan. Several treatments may be needed for eventual 100% control, but one treatment will usually knock out 90% - 95% of the nutgrass within a few days.

Not a very organic way of taking out the nutgrass, but it will work very well…

Pulling nutgrass is useless and it will just come back. Even worse, it will continue to spread unless aggressive herbicide treatments are done.

Some folks have tried to use a wick system to dab the nutgrass with glysphosphate (Roundup). The Roundup will give a quick top-kill of the nutgrass, but it will come back in a few weeks.


I'ver ordered this stuff and will have real soon - thanks again !

chris (biggreentoes)


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 11:18 am 
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Location: San Antonio,TEXAS
Hmmm. If your only suggestion is to use chemicals, can you please do it somewhere else. This really is a forum for only organic solutions.

Digging it out is effective. Another approach for flower beds is to mulch it up several inches. That makes digging it out much easier and it can actually be eradicated by doing that.

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 Post subject: Getting rid of Nutgrass
PostPosted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 7:52 am 
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Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2004 3:00 am
Posts: 516
Location: Dallas,Texas
Dirt Doctor Organic News #19 Nutgrass

Nutgrass Cyperus rotundus and ciesculentus are perennial sedges introduced from Eurasia. It spreads by seed, nutlets and creeping tendrils. Likes wet soil and is hard to control. Control in turf by planting ryegrass in the fall. There are some other treatments that work well.

There is only one guaranteed, foolproof method to completely kill nutgrass. First, dig out every tiny piece of the plant including the seeds and nutlets. Make sure you get it all by sifting the soil through a mesh such as a window screen. Dump the collected material on the driveway and burn it. Sweep up all the ashes and seal in a concrete box. Drive to the coast and dump the sealed box 20 miles off shore. There are other controls, but none that work completely every time.

Sorry, there's no perfect organic or toxic chemical solution yet. The commonly recommended chemicals are Image and Manage. Most everyone in the landscape industry agrees with me that Image doesn't work well. Manage works better (although not completely), but will severely damage, deform or even kill your trees and other plants.

Manage is one of the damaging SU herbicides I have warned you about. Dr. Carl Whitcomb has researched and written about this for years. All you can do for now is let the problem areas dry out between watering, dig the plants out physically and spot spray with vinegar herbicides, fatty acid herbicides or heavy applications of molasses. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is currently experimenting with the use of mustard meal.

I have had luck, and others have reported success, killing nutgrass with kindness. Mow, clip or pull as often as you can and apply a heavier than normal application of dry molasses. Use about 3 – 5 lbs. per 100 sq. ft. and repeat in two weeks. Use lesser rates in turf to avoid damage to grasses. The mixed products that contain molasses, cornmeal and wheat bran will also help. The idea here is to stimulate a furious level of biological activity aimed at rotting the crowns of the undesired plants. Pouring liquid molasses or piling dry molasses on each nutgrass plant works if you have the patience.

Another method is to remove the weed physically with mechanical devices. Nutgrass in beds can be covered with newspaper and mulch. Spot spray plants that continue to grow with the vinegar herbicide formula. For turf, overseed problem areas with ryegrass in the fall. Applying corn gluten meal in the spring at 20 lbs. per 1,000 sq. ft. prior to seed germination is also helpful. An important point to remember is that nutgrass grows primarily in wet, anaerobic soil. Try applying hydrogen peroxide, the kind at the drug store, full strength to the problem areas.

In vegetable gardens and flower beds, except for areas where you have bulbing plants like onion, garlic or saffron, let the weed grow. It doesn’t hurt the plants or the fruit and flower production at all, in fact, just the opposite. It will however grow right through bulbs and corms.

If you have some other recommendation that is non-toxic and works, let me know so it can be passed on to the world.


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PostPosted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 8:05 pm 
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Location: San Antonio,TEXAS
I don't think this will help and may be discouraging, but in the time since this was first posted I have gathered more experience with nutgrass. I think I can say that I don't have a problem with it. It occasionally pops up in my back yard. When I see it I will pull it out. Perhaps because I get it early I have been able to keep it under control, but it doesn't seem to come back.

In the front, when the city changed the water meter at the house they had to replace the pipe coming to the meter. The dirt they used to back fill the hole quickly sprouted both bermuda and nutgrass. I never did anything but water infrequently, mow at the mower's highest setting, and fertilize with either corn meal or alfalfa. Within the season the area became St Augustine and I've had no sign of either weed since then.

Other than to suggest a hard core organic program along with proper watering and mowing, that's all I have to suggest from my experience.

Bob Webster, down here in San Antonio, suggests spraying the soil with molasses. Molasses will stimulate bacterial growth that may tend to rot the various underground parts of the plant.

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