Pictured is crabgrass thriving in a lawn during the recent dry spell.
Staff photo
By Dave Case
On Fertile Ground
Welcome to another addition of “On Fertile Ground” — your local source of timely homeowner, garden and agricultural articles for Champaign County.
Late summer crabgrass making you crabby?
Yes, crabgrass, the bane of every Champaign County Ohioan’s yard. It’s the green monster that thrives when our other grass is starting to take a well-deserved nap. While your neighbors are busy decorating their front porches with pumpkins and hay bales, you’re out there with a garden hoe, battling this relentless invader like it’s a scene from “The Walking Dead.”
Let’s face it, crabgrass is the cockroach of the lawn world. It laughs in the face of your carefully laid sod, your expensive fertilizers, and your meticulously timed watering schedule. In fact, crabgrass seems to thrive on your frustration. Did you forget to mow your lawn last weekend? Congratulations, you’ve just given crabgrass a head start in its quest for world domination – or at least lawn domination.
By September, it’s too late for the pre-emergent treatments that might have saved your yard back in April. Now, you’re stuck playing catch-up with a plant that could probably survive the apocalypse. And let’s not even talk about those awkwardly shaped brown patches it leaves behind when you finally do manage to rip it out, roots and all. It’s like crabgrass has its own twisted sense of humor, leaving your lawn looking like a bad haircut just in time for the neighborhood block party.
But all hope is not lost. If you’re willing to put in the effort, you can still reclaim your yard. Consider this: September is prime time for sowing cool-season grasses, like fine fescues, which can out-compete crabgrass if given half a chance. But let’s be real, you’ll probably just end up with a yard full of both, locked in an eternal battle for lawn supremacy.
What can be done now? A little, but we’ll have better luck with a pre-emerge next April. But what about now?
-Manual removal. Get the roots. Do it when soil is moist or use a tool.
-Mow high! I continue to preach this, don’t I? Higher mowing height makes it harder for crabgrass seeds to germinate.
-Water deeply and infrequently.
-Don’t let it go to seed. It’s an annual weed. It dies in the fall but not before producing thousands of seeds.
-Overseeding? Use a fine or turf type tall fescue or Kentucky Bluegrass.
Ever wondered about the differences between Ky. Blue and Turf Type Tall Fescue?
Kentucky Bluegrass: cool season grass, a little more “elegant,” shallower root system than fescue, spreads via rhizomes, requires more sunlight, fertilizer and water, doesn’t handle foot traffic as well.
Turf Type Fall or Fine Fescue: cool season grass, germinates faster than bluegrass, more heat tolerant, bunch forming grass, longer durability
Summary, consider a mix of both. A grass seed with a mix is a good choice because when Ky. Blue starts to fade and struggle in July/August in the heat of summer, Turf Type Tall Fescue performs well with deep roots which combat drought.
Other September jobs if you’re looking for good things to do this month:
-Buy perennial flowers. Usually at a nice discount.
-Fall flowers to plant, mums and asters.
-Seed and renovate the lawn. Get good seed to soil contact.
-Order spring bulbs. Bulbs can be planted now or stowed away.
-Fall vegetables. Direct sow radishes, turnips, squash and lettuces.
-Plant trees and shrubs.
-Head to a farmers market or orchard.
Champaign County Ag Sector
Where to start? The Canadian rail stoppage or our August drought just when we didn’t need either.
Rail operations are gradually resuming, but there are still challenges. Two railroads mentioned that it could take several weeks for the railway network to recover fully and for supply chains to stabilize. The union has expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s intervention and has hinted at the possibility of further disruptions, as they plan to appeal the decision in court.
We exported $28.2 billion of agricultural products last year to Canada – it’s our third-largest destination for agricultural exports behind China and Mexico.
Plus, about 85% of the 13 million metric tons of U.S. potash imports last year came from Canada, nearly all of which crossed by rail.
“We’ll be playing catch-up for the rest of the harvest year, till next July,” said Wade Sobkowich, executive director of the Western Grain Elevator Association.
Onto the weather …
What goes into a weather forecast? We’ve always said, it’s the world’s easiest job. Just say it might rain, or it’s partly cloudy and you can never really be wrong.
We are transitioning from El Niño to La Niña, and this means very hot summers that persist through September to early October. But the Atlantic Ocean is unusually warm which is good for tropical storms.
We know rain is the key to high crop yields unless you irrigate, which we have a fair amount of in Champaign County. High temps increase water use. Experts say a corn or soybean crop use 0.25 inches or more a day (almost 7,000 gallons an acre). That means we need an inch every 4 days that must come from rain, irrigation or stored in the soil.
Climate change and the resulting high temperatures will increase water use by crops which will, in turn, cause more rapid depletion of the soil moisture reservoir causing stress.
Till next month!
Question or comments? Email me at [email protected].
A graduate of the University of Kentucky, Dave Case majored in Agronomy and Ag Econ with an emphasis in Weed Science. Dave’s career spanned Champaign Landmark, Crow’s Hybrid Corn Company and 30 years with Bayer CropScience. In 2018, Case formed Case Ag Consulting LLC. He is a member of Alpha Gamma Rho Agricultural Fraternity. He is on the Board of Directors of the Agribusiness Association of Kentucky, Chairman of the Ohio AgriBusiness Association Educational Trust Foundation and Secretary of the Alpha Gamma Rho Alumni Board. He is on the Board of Directors of the Champaign Family YMCA, Champaign County Historical Society Agricultural Capital Campaign Committee and is a Trustee for the Champaign County Farm Bureau. Dave and his wife Dorothy live on a small farm south of Urbana where they raise goats, cattle, chickens and various crops and they donate all profits to Pancreatic Cancer Research. Dave can be reached at [email protected].
