Hi all,

First time post here...

I have a front lawn here in North Texas of St. Augustine and lightly scattered with patches of Dallisgrass.

What's the best way to get rid of the Dallisgrass without harming the lawn?

Also, the same applies for the backyard but, instead of St. Augustine, it's Bermuda grass.

Thanks in advance.

Steve Cosio
Mansfield, TX

Welcome to the Dirt Doctor's Organic Forum, I hope you find it to be informative and enjoyable!

I have found what works best for me in practice is pulling with my "Weed Hound". Once it is centered on the Dallis grass, kick it down hard and then turn it gently and begin to pull up after a few turns. This method works quite well for me and leaves only minor scars (about a thumb sized hole), put some Corn Gluten Meal in the opening so seeds can not germinate that may have fallen in.

I pull it by hand. It is embarrassingly easy to pull. The soil has to be a little moist but even my compacted driveway gives up the dalis grass easily.

Thanks for the help. With all the rain we've had in the past 24 hours, it should be pretty easy to yank 'em up.

Steve
Mansfield, TX

Dchall, I would love to allow you to embarass yourself with my Dallis grass

Seriously, I have to register my experience with the stuff as embarrisingly and frustratingly NOT easy to pull. It's leaves are very deceptive, getting to the root sometimes takes a bit of detective work. Then, making sure the *whole* root is out so it can't regenerate is another chore.

That said, to answer the OP: The only effective method I've ever experienced for dealing with Dallis grass is to pull it up. And, in the end, to accept the fact that you probably won't ever see it's complete elmination and to be happy that it is at least green

I had to pull this thread out of the background and bring it to the front to keep from starting a new thread on it. I didn't want to start a new one.

Anyway, I have/had a bad problem with dallisgrass invading my 3 year old St. Augustine lawn.

I do pull what I can every weekend and, yes, it is much easier to pull when the ground is wet. I use a "Weed Hound" also but dallisgrass can be deceptively sneakey. Just using the tool rarely gets the whole plant out of the ground leaving other shoots just off to the sides that will spring back into action very soon so I do dig around and try to get every little piece of root that I possibly can.

I spoke to a local grass farmer a few weeks ago and he said, if I have the patience, to just cut the lawn at about 2 inches and, if I have to, mow it every other day or very frequently to keep from allowing the dallisgrass from popping up stalks and spreading the seeds. He said that it might take a year or two but that I would see good results within a month or two.

So, with all of that explained, my question is about the corn gluten meal. I tried putting a spot of Roundup in the hole, in the past, to try and prevent the roots from taking hold again but it made dead spots of about 1 foot in diameter. Will CGM have the same affect? How affective is the CGM solution?

Any answers are greatly appreciated.

Lots of good advice, so I'm sure I will not be adding much. I had a problem with Dallis grass in my St. Augustine front yard and bermuda back yard when I lived in Plano. I pulled most out using a pitch fork to gently loosen the ground around it first, BUT THE KEY was always spending 5 minutes and pulling any of the tall seed shoots from any new sprouts before cutting the grass each week. (And don't put them in your compost bin unless you know it gets plenty hot.) The Dallis grass was gone by the end of the summer. The St. Augustine is a great carpet that really smothers out all weeds once established. It was harder to completely eliminate from the bermuda area, but not impossible.

Now that I live in the country, I hand pull thistle from my fields and don't worry about all the other lovely wild flowers and grasses. Mary

LovetoLearn, the corn gluten will do nothing to existing plants other than make them grow better. It prevents (weed) seeds from sprouting & is a great fertilizer. To kill the stuff, use the 10 or 20% vinegar formula on the home page.

Does it kill everything around it like Roundup does or just the area applied? Also, how quickly does the area recover so that I can plant more grass in the area?

Thanks for the advise.

It is non-selective so yes it does work like roundup and kills all green plants and grasses. I would wait a month or 2 after spraying before reseeding.

Jason

Let me clarify the previous post. The vinegar will only kill/damage the growth that you spray it on. It will not migrate through the soil & keep killing & polluting like round-up will. In the soil the vinegar is beneficial; you can plant within a couple of days. To sum up, keep the spray from drifting - hit only what you want gone.

Mississippi State Ag service says the most effective way is to place a can with both ends cut out over the dallis grass clump, then spray it with Roundup. There will be brown spots for a while, but it is highly effective. The brown spots will cover up in a few weeks. Then you only have to deal with seeds that blow from a neighbors yard or are dropped by birds or other animals.

One idea about cutting the grass to 2 inches might actually be counter productive because SA should be cut between 4 and 6 inches for the most healthy lawn. A 4-6" SA lawn will effectively choke out most weeds and bermuda grass if you have any. Only problem is typical lawn mowers won't cut that high. I can get 4" from my John Deere, but that is about it.

One way to kill off SA and let your bermuda grass thrive is to cut your lawn really short, like 2" according to Florida lawn care people who are trying to get rid of SA and keep bermuda grass.

Keep in mind we want to limit our use of Roundup, which stays in water systems and is very harmful to aquatic wildlife.

Put a lid on that can for 4-6 days and the clump will solarize, or bake out.

Commercially, we dig. We use sharpshooters, pry up the clump, and fill the hole back in with compost.

Vinegar with 1% orange oil added to it works, but you need to apply it 2 or 3 times for a full kill on this invasive weed.

Since this thread was revived, I read my reply way above and can't understand what I was thinking. Dallis grass is not 'embarrassingly' easy to pull. I usually reserve that remark for henbit so I must have been really confused.

Round up is not an organic approach, so you can forget about that in this forum.