Nutsedge - An Easy Effective Do-It-Yourself Way to Control it in Most Turfgrass Lawns

The extensive semi-dormant root system of the nutsedge grasses makes their permanent removal from infested lawns difficult. However, a relatively new herbicide has tested fairly specific for this invasive lawn weed. Halosulfuron-methyl will effectively control purple nutgrass when it is applied to any new sprouts on a regular basis. It appears to work on yellow nutgrass, too.

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Purple or yellow nutgrass is often seen as the course faster-growing grass blades appearing a day or two after a lawn is mowed. Its three-to-five green shoots per plant have strong vertical veins going down their centers. Because of its invasive wide-spread, not-always-interconnected root system, nutgrass gives new growths after the current above-ground ones have been destroyed. For this reason, most herbicide treatments are ineffective unless done repeatedly until all of its root systems are completely destroyed.

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Results from a comparative study.

A study by a southwestern university showed halosulfuron-methyl has the same root-killing power as does the kill-all-vegetation herbicide, glyphosate. However, halosulfuron-methyl has two distinct advantages over the kill-all herbicide.

1. It does not harm most other lawn grasses.

Halosulfuron-methyl does not harm the typical lawn grasses, such as, the fescues, bluegrasses, and ryegrasses. It will yellow certain burmudas. Yet, it is safe to use on the warm or cool-season grasses, and to use near the well-established ornamental plants, shrubs, and trees. However, it should not be applied to any bedding plants or garden vegetables.

2. It is easy to apply through spot sprays.

For the above reason, this water-diluted chemical is easily applied to the nutgrass growths as a spray treatment from a small hand-held one-gallon can without being careful about getting it on the surrounding lawn grasses.

Because the spraying of an entire lawn with this herbicide can be proportionally expensive, these spray applications are done only on the individual sprouts or small patches of it. If an entire lawn is heavily infested with nutsedge, a homeowner might want to have a professional lawn service treat the whole yard with its own less-expensive bulk chemicals first. Another option is to redo the entire lawn by killing it first, and then re-seeding it from scratch. Otherwise, it could take several gallons of this herbicide solution to do the job.

How to use halosulfuron-methyl on moderate infestations of nutgrass.

The written instructions and safety precautions that come with this product, which is sold under brand names, like, MON-1200, Manage, Sedgehammer, and Haolsulfuron-Pro, are straightforward and easy to read entirely. Currently, one form of the product comes as a solid in a 0.9-gram water-soluble packet () which is diluted to one-gallon in water together with a small amount of leaf-sticking surfactant () if desired. One or two drops of dish-soap might work as well. Then, simply spray the mix onto the nutgrass sprouts until its shoots or leaves are covered (wet and shiny).

The nutgrass will start to yellow in four-to-seven days. It will die-out in about two weeks. After that, freshly made solutions can be sprayed onto any new sprouts until they and their root systems are eliminated.

Nutsedge - An Easy Effective Do-It-Yourself Way to Control it in Most Turfgrass Lawns

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