Help identifying weed

8 years ago

I have a weed in my yard that is flat and wide, like a flattened straw. Grows straight up and very quickly. It grows in patches, and the patches are multiplying.

At first I thought it was nutsedge, which I've had before. But using the stuff I used to kill nutsedge didn't work. I don't think this is crabgrass. Anyone know what this is? And the best product to use to get rid of it (without killing all of the bermuda that's surrounding it)?

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Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

I second forsheems; I can see a start of an inflorescence in the picture and it is not inconsistent with Dallisgrass. After you treat with Roundup you might want to keep the mowing lower and more frequent -it will favor the Bermuda grass, and definitely consider some dethatching. Also, use a reel mower on your Bermuda grass -it will love you for it. And finally, dethatch your Bermuda at least once a year; dethatching works miracles on Bermuda.

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Comments (6)

forsheems
8 years ago
Can you post a close up of it? I agree, don't think it's crabgrass. Looks almost like dallisgrass but it's too light of a shade of green. Here's one sure way to deal with it. Put a rubber glove on with a cloth glove (the brown jersey gloves work great) and soak the cloth glove with straight RoundUp. Since the weed grass is much taller than the bermuda wipe the RoundUp soaked glove over the weed. It should kill the weed causing little or no damage to the bermuda.
reeljake
8 years ago
Looks like nutsedge to me. What did you use?
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John Tempesta
Original Author
8 years ago
@forsheems with roundup, does the roundup just need to touch some part of the plant? Or do I need to try to touch down near where it's coming out of the soil? I'm used to spraying liberally on dormant Bermuda so I'm honestly not sure what area actually needs to make contact.

I had another picture that I'm adding here. I didn't have time to take a better one yesterday when it was light out, but I had this one a little closer up. Not sure how the quality will come out on here, but there appear to be some thin braided looking vines mixed in with the main flat, tall ones.

@reeljake I used sedgehammer.
forsheems
8 years ago
John, just wipe the RoundUp on any part of the blades you can without touching the bermuda. Using it undiluted it really doesn't take much.
John Tempesta
Original Author
8 years ago
Thank you guys for the tips, I appreciate it.

This may be a topic for another post, but since it was mentioned - I actually have an electric, push dethatcher. I tried it out on a small area a few weeks ago and it looked like it was pulling up good grass and tearing up runners. I had it on the highest of 3 settings. Is there a way to obviously know if I'm tearing up too much while dethatching my Bermuda?