Hey guys! I'm Amber from DoMyOwn.com and today I'm going to talk to you about
pre-emergent herbicides and why should put them down in the fall. There's a
whole host of other weeds that will germinate across the fall and winter
months... weeds like poa annua, chickweed, and a variety of others are gonna pop up in
your yard in the spring if a pre-emergent isn't used in the fall.
Using one in the fall also helps make sure that you save time and money.
It's important to get a barrier down in the fall to make sure that you're getting
ahead and keeping your lawn healthy for the next season.
You may want to look at doing a split application as well depending on the
temperatures in your area and what kind of weed control you're looking to
achieve. We have a great video on how to do split applications that you can see
on our site, and this will show you exactly why it's important and how to do
this step by step. Basically the short version of it is it's going to help
extend your weed control and give you a much healthier and nicer looking lawn
all season long. When should you apply a pre-emergent herbicide? There's typically
two times a year that we're gonna focus on: spring and fall. Now as we go into the
fall season you're going to start looking for temperatures to drop between
80, 70 and going lower. You can use a soil thermometer to test the temperatures in
your area to make sure that you're at the right time and get your application
down for the best results. Now, for the fall a lot of times these temperatures
are going to range around the August and September timeframe.
This is when you want to start looking to put down your first pre-emergent
application especially if you're planning to do a split.
Split applications are normally going to be done about five to eight weeks apart so
you'll want to make sure to keep that in mind and mark that on your calendar if
you start doing your pre emergent application soon. Some of you are in
areas of the U.S. that never really seem to get cold. It's just kind of just... hot all
year round. In that case, your pre emergent window is going to be a little
bit wider than most. Areas like Arizona and Florida often run into needing to
put a pre-emergent down later in the season, potentially even closer to
October and November to make sure that your barrier really lasts. UV rays and
lots of rain can break down your product so you want to make sure that you're
getting a good application down to sustain any weather that mother nature
might throw at your yard. What do I need to know to make sure I'm choosing the
right pre-emergent for my lawn and my needs? The first step which is the
most important is finding out what type of lawn you have. You want to make sure
that you're using products that are safe for your grass type. If you don't know
your grass type, you're welcome to send in photos to our team to try and
identify it or you can pair up with your local Master Gardener's office to find
out the turf type in your lawn or in your area. The next most important step
is going to be finding out what weeds you have. Knowing this is crucial to make
sure you're choosing the right selective herbicide for your needs.
You want it to be safe for your turf type and you want to make sure that it's
going to control everything that you have. Pre-emergents, like we mentioned
before, are going to prevent weeds from coming up so if you do have something in
your yard currently you want to look at some of our selective herbicides for
post-emergent control currently. When doing applications, you want to make sure
that you're being careful and following all the label instructions, being
sure to follow all of that PPE that's going to be listed things like gloves,
closed toe shoes, long pants, and any other directions that it may provide
to make sure that you stay safe and so does your lawn. There's a ton of
different pre-emergent options out there... there's liquids there's granules and we
get asked which one should I use? As far as the application goes, you can choose
granular or liquid: whatever meets your needs.
With products like granular pre-emergents, you're going to want to
make sure that you calibrate your spreader before your use and make sure
that it's going to deliver that even application that you're looking for.
You'll want to make passes back and forth in your yard trying to get as much
of an even coating as possible. Be sure to sweep any granules that may land on
concrete areas like sidewalks and driveways back into the yard, rather than
washing them off, to be sure that no herbicide is going to stain any of the
areas around your home. For liquid applications, we recommend going with
tank sprayers. This is going to ensure ultimate accuracy across the yard and
make sure that you're getting a good even application. You can use an approved
tank mix post emergent herbicides with your pre-emergent at the same
time. This will help eliminate the weeds that are currently there while your
barrier of your pre-emergent is getting you ready for the following season.
For some of you that may be using herbicides that you're just not really comfortable with or
you're not sure that you're going to get your application even you can add in a marking dye
with your solution to make sure you can see where
you have applied. Marking dye will normally fade within about one to two
days at most and it's not going to stay in any of your yard and change the color
of it. It's just going to help you see where you've applied so you don't
overlap and do too much herbicide in the same area.
Again, there's tons of options out there as far as what pre-emergents you can use.
Some of the most popular ingredients out there are dithiopyr, pendimethalin and prodiamine.
Out of those ingredients we typically recommend one like the dithiopyr
in the spring because it's great on crabgrass and really helps get
a lot of those spring weeds controlled very well. For the fall, we tend to
recommend ones that have pendimethalin in them. They work great to prevent
poa annua and a variety of other weeds.
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Thanks for watching!