# Tato's 2022 Lawn Journal (Europe/Spain/Madrid)



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

Hello,

My previous 2021 journal 

Seems like the game can start again here:


Soil temps are around 50ºF (10ºC).

Latest pictures from my previous 2021 journal, November the 13th:








New pictures from today:
In this zone I will have to put more seeds but I have to wait a bit since soil temps in the shadiest zone are ~ 43ºF


The darker green zones are the one I had to dig to fix irrigation issues, I guess there is better soild there.


In this picture poa annua(and/or triv), I guess.


I'm in the process of getting the license to be able to buy pre-emergent(pendimethalin and or ethofumesate) and callisto (the european version of tenacity), but I can only get the version of 10% mesotrine, tenacity has 40%. 
Didn't mow yet because I want to see better poa annua and get rid of as much plant as I cant with my fork.

GOALS for this season:

Get pesticides license.
 Seed the bare spots.
 Continue with the spoon feeding program.
 Work on the edges to put something more decorative.


----------



## Grizzly Adam (May 5, 2017)

Can you get the callisto in concentrate and mix it to that tenacity rate? And then, of course, mix it fully down to comply with label directions


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

What I thought to get the tenacity rate was multiply by 4 the callisto dosis since callisto is 10% and tenacity 40%. But I will have to test in a small area before.
Anyways I sent an e-mail to syngenta Spain to get more information about this Callisto product.


----------



## bernstem (Jan 16, 2018)

Multiply the 40% rate by 4 to get the amount of 10% to use. If you want to apply at 4 Oz/A from the 40% label, you use 16 Oz/A of the 10%. There is no need to try and get the dilute solution to 40% - which you wouldn't be able to do at home without some lab equipment you likely do not have.


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

Hi 
sorry @bernstem didn't see your message. Thanks for the clarify and yes, that's simpler since I don't have lab equipment at home :lol:

Until mid April I can't get the pesticide license, so impossible to get callisto and other chemicals until then.

2/13 
put down some fertilizer 9-4-9 +2MG + 15SO3.

2/26 
Hand-pulled which I guess is poa annua, I have to do a second round.




Mowed today at 2" and get some color improvements after fertilizer







For the next week there will be low temps, after that I will put down some seed in the bare spots and start spoon-feeding again.


----------



## timtimotej (Sep 8, 2019)

Hi fellow European!
I tried to kill poa a with Themsa(10%mesotrione) two years ago. 
I did cure with 4 apps and got same effect as I see Tenacity do. But this didn't kill poa a only. I killed all rye and some poa too, but it came back as i didn't had any pre emergent applied. Btw my lawn looked terrible for a month. 
If you will use mesotrione, use it only for highlighting poa and seeding.

If you want to get rid of poa I strongly suggest hand pulling. 
Your lawn is small and this is probably your best option.

What I did last spring and had great sucsess in poa battle.
First thing in spring I applied BASF Stomp Aqua(pendimethalin)as soon as soil temp hit 55F(double check if I'm correct). Use AUT label for convertion and re apply in two months.
Than I pulled poa for quite some time, but after a while I came to a point where I stopped seeing poa.
In fall I applied Stomp Aqua again(two times).

I can tell you that pre emergent is the best solution in poa fight.
It's my first year with pre emergent and for now I only found 3-4 plants this spring. If I compare this to last spring's few buckets of poa, Stomp Aqua did it's job.

On first photo above I only see 1 poa plant in front everything else is kbg and rye
Second photo this looks KBG to me. 

Hope this will save you some time and money.


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

timtimotej said:


> Hi fellow European!
> I tried to kill poa a with Themsa(10%mesotrione) two years ago.
> I did cure with 4 apps and got same effect as I see Tenacity do. But this didn't kill poa a only. I killed all rye and some poa too, but it came back as i didn't had any pre emergent applied. Btw my lawn looked terrible for a month.
> If you will use mesotrione, use it only for highlighting poa and seeding.
> ...


Thanks @timtimotej, Sorry I didin't answer before but I don't know why I'm not receiving the topic notifications....

About pre-emergents I can get both "stomp aqua" and "tramat 50" which has ethofumesate instead of pendimenthalin, I imagine both do the work the same so I will pick the cheapest one unless someone tells me the oposite.

And about the mesotrione... I was not 100% conveinced to use it since I saw in this forum a lot of examples on which the lawn was not looking so good. The callisto 1L bottle is 68€ it's quite expensive only to test it. Don't know what to do since in the shadow part of my yard (7,m2 or 75sqm) there is a lot of poa annua, see pictures bellow. I see 3 options:
1- Use the mesotrione and test it
2- hand pull all that I can and go for pre-emergent on Autum.
3- killing it a reseed on August (this one I won't be able to use pre-emergent)

Option number 3 is discarded since I may have much more poa annua later due to not using pre-emergents.
Option number 1 don't like 100% since I may have to wait to allow my kid to play in the yard.
Option number 2 seems to be the most decent to me by now.

I recently get my pesticide license, but I have to wait until it is manage and being updates in the spanish "ROPO" a database of people with license.

Going back to the journal...
Weather for the next 2 weeks


I have much more poa annua than the last year and I'm thinking that it may have because of the tilling machine I used for the renovation and it may help to spread the seeds... any way for sure 100% on the next autum I use a pre-emergent.

The 3 picture I use to post to compare:
Here is the horrible zone, My weapons by now are a fork and mow a lot to cut the seedheads.




I have to fix the irrigation, I can't water, because I have a pipe broken. Luckly for me because of the rain we have in Spain during March and April I didn't need to water. The rainiest month in more than 50 years. BTW the poa spot near the water box is going to die when I fixe it 


More pictures to have a better perspective:
4th April


17th April






17th April I put 0,2 lb of urea + seafeed Xtra, temperatures are reaching 65ª -70º (18-21ºC)

The last year I hace rust during may, let's se how is it going with the new seeds.

BR


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

Hello,

Didn't updated the journal since the only thing that I did was mowing the lawn and applying fertilizer.
First of all some pictures to show the lawn:

First one with my dog reviewing the lawn


Different perspective:


Closer look:


As you can see there is a lot of poa annua which will die soon because of the high temperatures. I didn't get my license yet so I can't do anything but hand pull the ones I see. I don't know why the authorities takes so long on those burocratic topics....

I didn't water the lawn until yesterday this year, March and April have been the most wet month int the past 50 years in Spain so thanks to that I saved money and water  Now Temperatures are raising and the irrigation needed to be fixed.

I had to replace the piece that joins the electric valves with the main pipe.


Piece replaced and working, I had to clean up a little bit


And also dig more to have more space thinking in the future and place there stones under the pipes


This is how it is now


By the way, I took advantage and remove all the poa annua sourrounding the irrigation zone and put new seeds there:


The weather for the next days says that I will need to water a lot


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

Yesterday I put down urea at 0,2 N/ksft rate and sea feed.

The reseeded zone is doing great, after 4 days I have the PRG germination:


The last year I had some rust fungus with my other mix, with the new one with better varieties no fungus yet (cross fingers).
I planning to get the HOC one mower notch lower which will be 1,5" now it's at 2", just to give it a try.


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

May 18th

The new grass is doing great, I will wait a bit more for more germination.



Sourrounding this new seed section I tried a lower HOC and it seems ok after 3 days. I will try with the hole lawn the next week when the temperatures will be a bit lower. I don't what is happeningn this year with the weather but it's crazy we passed from raining like hell and around 60ºF to 90ºF in 15 days.



Still no track of my pesticides license so I can't buy anything against poa annua yet.


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

It is maybe too early to mow the new section but grass was about 3 inches at some places so I mowed it very carefully and this is the result:

right after the mow I sprayed urea at 0,2 lb N/1000sqft rate to get advance of the weather the folowing days.

The rest of the lawn remains the same, my daily task is: pulling out by hang the poa annua when I have the time.

The weather for the next days:


----------



## Grizzly Adam (May 5, 2017)

That new stuff is coming in nice!


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

Hi

I enjoyed some days at the beach with the family and the lawn was in a second places hehe. Now it is time to update. 
Still no sign of my pesticides license. let's wait more.

Today I put 40gr of a very concentrated humic acid I found and I'm testing this year, then water the lawn to follow the instruction at the label.

The new stuff is coming in nice after one month.


I have to keep an eye on it because of the temperatures that are about to come, see the bottom of this update.

This picture shows a different view, still have poa annua, it is strugling becasue of the heat and I'm baging the clippings to get seed heads.


A different view with my little dog watching.


Another thing I wanted to put in this journal is that in the next picture (taken from May 2021) there is what I guess is some rust. I had it all over the lawn and if I use a napkin to touch it the napkin got the yellow stuff from the lawn.

This year with the new and better seed I didn't see rust or any fungus yet (let's cross my fingers). I must say that "buy the best seed you can get" worked for me  thanks to this forum and the user who recommended me these seeds in Europe.

Last but not least, let's talk about weather. We have a heat wave the next days so that I will have to water more, now I'm watering like 1,5 inches/week. Some people working for golf courses here told me that they are watering around 2 inches/week during these heat waves.


I will try to update during the weekend.


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

After the heat wave comes a much better weather for lawn care:



At least I can say that these seed behave better with high temperatures than the ones I had before.

20th June: spoon feeding with urea to take advance of the good temperatures during this week.

Update of the reseeded zone:

It's filling in the more I mow the better it gets. Still difference in color. I'm noticing that the new zone is growing more than the rest of the lawn. It has the same fertilize but I put new soil, maybe that's the reason.


Closer view:


A different view to see differences in colour and some poa annua seedheads


I'm mowing twice a week but know is time to set a higher HOC.
Still no sign of my pesticide license


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

Hello all,
I couldn't do an update before due to children, change or work new baby coming soon... I decided to take pictures and later do a big update.

Sort story: 
the 26th of June I was mowing my lawn when I realized my mower bag was full after walking a bit. It was weird but I cleaned the mower bag and didn't worry about it too much. Suddenly it was full again! Then I realized I was mowing like 1 notch lower. My regular HOC is around 2" and I was mowing around 1,2" (3 cm)

Half the lawn was mowed to 1,2" so I decided to continue since the weather for those days was not so hot. After all I wanted to try a bit lower HOC. It didn't look too bad but the rotary mower is not working well because of some not level parts

26th June


27th June


These 2 days everything was looking brown so I started to water a bit more even daily

30th June from a different view. It didn't look too bad


1st July
The new seed zone seems to be good after the mistake and is going well with the heat


18th July
the lawn looks better, I don't understand why after having more than 100º I still have poa annua. The closest spot to the pavement is the worst. I'm watering every other day but maybe I need to do it 2 days per week.



21st July


This picture was taken in the morning. These new seeds are incredible I didn't put chemicals this year for fungus very happy with the change thanks to this forum.

The weather for the next week:

I can't do anything but water the lawn and look for weeds.

About my pesticide license, it seems like it is in the final steps of the process, but this make me start to planning for autumn just in case I won't have my license at the correct time to put the pre-emergent. I don't like the poa annua color and I want it gone 
My yard is facing north so I can start by mid August.

Plan without license (I have still some seeds from last year):
- Do some leveling work with a mix of sand and soil and seed some edge spots.
- In the shadiest zone use the scarifier and try to remove some poa annua + reseed
- I don't think the rest of the lawn needs more seeds.

Plan with pesticide license:
- Choose between ethofumesate 50% (tramat 50sc) and pendimethalin (stomp aqua). Or even try european version of tenacity
- I don't know if the leveling work is compatible with pre-emergent, my logic says it is. Will do some research.


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

I couldn't update the journal before, new member of the family and not too much time to lawn care.

It have been a very hot August month, night temperatures above 73ºF (22ºC) even 78-80 (25-26ºC), at the news they say that these are tropical nights. In my zone usually we have around 64ºF (17-18ºC).

With day temperatures at 104ºF some days I've been doing daily watering during some periods. Luckily for all of us the end of the summer is here.

Another topic I'd like to remark is that my pesticide license is not ready yet (It is in the last step) so unless it is ready in the next 15 days I won't be able to buy mesotrione or some other chemicals and it will has to be in the next Spring.

Let's see the process of the lawn with some pictures:

9th AGO
I noticed some of the poa annua plants turning yellow, I guess it is because of the heat... The lawn looks bad but not as it was the previous summer..




28th AGO
The poa annua plants are dead by now and even some other plant like what I guess is some raygrass. The lawn look even worse compared to the 9th but between 9th and 28th it was horrible and it is when I started to increase the watering. Sorry I don't have more pictures to show.




After the 28th the night temperatures are bellow 68ºF (~20ºC) which is not what it is called here tropical nights. The lawn colour fro this day on change to a better green

30th AGO
Sorry for the resolution of some pictures... Now the lawn looks much better and I mowed it to its regular HOC (almost 2 inches)




Now the weather for the next 15 days and starting to plan:


I can't do anything until the 11th of september. I had the plan of leveling a little bit this fall but since I see some bare spots I have to reseed them with some seed I still have.

So to this day my plan for fall is:
1. power rake to get rid of all the dead stuff
2. Level the most uneven spots of the lawn
3. seed the bare spots
4. Do the nitrogen blitz


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

7th Sept

Sharpen mower blades and mow, HOC 1" 7/8 (~4,7 cm)


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

Yesterday started with the fall nitrogen blitz. Sprayed 0,5 lb N/M and water in immediately.

It's muy first time with this heavy amount of N. Let's see how it goes and think to change to granular or even to AS instead of urea.


----------



## tato (Aug 28, 2020)

Kids school and so on are keeping me away of the lawn, but not any more since everything else seems to be in place now.

first of all results of the heavy nitrogen blitz:


The result was perfect IMHO, and after the try I want more hehe.

*22th Sept*
Since I didn't have the pesticides license in time I decide to power rake and seed the bare sport for the zone that is very close to the wall, it needs also a leveling. the last Friday I got some free time I got to work:

First power rake, view from the 4 angles:





Then collect all the dead grass in piles



Seeds down and some peat moss 



It would be germinating in the next days. I have almost 2 month to make it growth.
By now I will continue with urea instead of AMS since the second one is being very difficult to find here


----------

