Prevent Crabgrass in Your Lawn

Controlling Crabgrass in the Lawn

Of all lawn weeds, crabgrass is the most common and bothersome. It is probably the only weed that everyone hates! Even though crabgrass is a grass, it doesn’t blend in with lawn grasses in color, habit, or texture and can be so aggressive that it out-competes good turf grasses. Understanding the life cycle of crabgrass will help you deal with it more effectively.

How Does Prevent Work?

Best Time to Prevent Crabgrass

Benefits of Using Prevent

Overseeding after Prevent

Prevent Video

However, the best herbicide control for crabgrass is two sequential applications of Prevent, a granular crabgrass pre-emergent, ten weeks apart, which will provide consistent and effective management against annual summer grassy weeds throughout the growing season.

What Is Prevent Crabgrass Pre-emergent?

Prevent stops crabgrass before it starts. Prevent is a granular selective pre-emergent herbicide that provides residual control of many grass weeds in established lawns. In addition, Prevent contains slow-release turf food to strengthen the grass to defend against aggressive spring weed pressure. When used according to directions, Prevent will control crabgrass, foxtail, goosegrass, barnyard grass, and other ugly grassy weeds in established lawns.

When Is the Best Time to Prevent Crabgrass?

Prevent must be applied before the weed seed germination, as it will not control established weeds. Depending on your location and weather conditions will determine how quickly the ground soil warms up in the spring, plan on the first Prevent application between Mid-March and Mid-April. Then, extend season-long control by applying a second application of Prevent ten weeks later, typically Late-May to Early June.

Benefits of Two-application Prevent formula:

• University studies have shown that the two-application formula outperforms one-application formulas. When used as directed, the two-application formula in Prevent will give 98% control over ugly annual grassy weeds like crabgrass.
• Prevent is Idiot Proof! Grass Pad’s two-application Prevent formula is more forgiving if slightly over-applied from inaccurate measurements, improperly calibrated fertilizer spreaders, or operator error.
• Prevent is explicitly formulated for Midwest lawns. The amount of pre-emergent required to stop crabgrass in the Midwest is not the same for crabgrass in Newark, NJ, or San Antonio, TX. Nationally sold crabgrass pre-emergents sold in most chain and box stores use the same crabgrass pre-emergent formula for all home lawns from Newark to San Diego.
• Prevent has a larger pellet size to provide better particle distribution. Bigger particles hold more herbicide, which means better lawn coverage. The national name brands want tiny prills to fill small bags to ship more bags on a pallet.
• The Prevent fertilizer formula makes grass grow. Encouraging dense turf growth, leaving little room in the soil for crabgrass to establish, significantly reduces the amount of crabgrass in the lawn.
• Proven Performance! With sixty years of experience in sod production, we are sharing our expertise and product experience with homeowners and landscape professionals.

How Does Prevent Work?

Prevent controls susceptible weeds by inhibiting weed seed germination and root development. After application, Prevent must be watered into the lawn to activate the herbicide. As the fertilizer particles get wet, the pre-emergent herbicide is washed off the outside of the pellet, creating a herbicide barrier in the soil. As soil temperatures rise, weed seeds lying in the barrier are killed as they begin to germinate.

Uncle’s Tip: Disturbing the herbicide barrier (such as core aeration or heavy raking) may reduce weed control.

How Long Before I Can Overseed After Applying Prevent?

Prevent will inhibit germination of turf seed if overseeded too soon after application. A single application of Prevent remains active in the soil for 10-12 weeks. Therefore, overseeding after Prevent application is not recommended until the fall overseeding season. However, if you have bare spots in the lawn, you can repair spots using Uncle’s Seed Sandwich technique. If you want to overseed your entire lawn in the spring, learn more about spring overseeding with Seed Safe.