# Trying to Rule out Triv. Need help!



## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

So I have a couple small lime green patches that have popped up and I've gone through the more common characteristic inspections of poa trivialis and I'm a little stumped. I don't see any visible ligule, it is a shiny leaf that is growing quicker than my good turf. In terms of shallow roots, I don't see much of it. It was actually fairly difficult to pull out where when I pulled some samples out, the leaf blades ripped before the roots were pulled. Here are a few pics I took. I'm debating on digging them out because I'm worried that it may be triv but I'm not sure. I still have plenty of seed left over from my overseed.


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## barkyman1 (Sep 14, 2020)

I am having the same issue in NJ - just posted the same question down below. Looks almost identical to what I see. I have no idea what to do. Popping up all over my lawn and never had it before. 🤷‍♂️


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## barkyman1 (Sep 14, 2020)

I am having the same issue in NJ - just posted the same question down below. Looks almost identical to what I see. I have no idea what to do. Popping up all over my lawn and never had it before. 🤷‍♂️


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## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

barkyman1 said:


> I am having the same issue in NJ - just posted the same question down below. Looks almost identical to what I see. I have no idea what to do. Popping up all over my lawn and never had it before. 🤷‍♂️


I'm stumped myself. I've had my fair share if Poa triv in last years and was able to ID it fairly easy. The shininess of the leaves, outgrowing the rest of the turf and the lime green color is the only characteristics I can find that triv has.


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## tgreen (Oct 20, 2018)

Scagfreedom48z+ said:


>


Definitely has some characteristics but the two pics above don't look like Poa T and if you're saying it is not pulling up easily then I don't think that is triv. I have been wrong before though. At this time of year, you would typically see a long stolon (spaghetti like thing) with tillers coming up here and there. It would look like the grass had flopped over and was growing sideways. It would also pull up very easily.


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## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

tgreen said:


> Scagfreedom48z+ said:
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> ...


There's definitely none of that long superficial root that's above the soil. I also sprayed my turf before overseeding and from what I remember, I didn't see it get lite up by the tenacity either. I'm really leaning toward digging it up and getting rid of it. I'm concerned that if it's triv, it's going to grow over the winter and become a bigger problem. I just don't know what else it could be


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## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

Bump


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## 2L8 (Mar 18, 2019)

Scagfreedom48z+ said:


> So I have a couple small lime green patches that have popped up and I've gone through the more common characteristic inspections of poa trivialis and I'm a little stumped. I don't see any visible ligule, it is a shiny leaf that is growing quicker than my good turf. In terms of shallow roots, I don't see much of it. It was actually fairly difficult to pull out where when I pulled some samples out, the leaf blades ripped before the roots were pulled. Here are a few pics I took. I'm debating on digging them out because I'm worried that it may be triv but I'm not sure. I still have plenty of seed left over from my overseed.


I've often seen very short ligules on young Poa trivialis plants. But I think I can recognize some grooves on the leaf on the 4th image. If this is correct, among with the short ligule and the shiny backside of the blade it may indicate that it is PRG. But if you did an overseed with TTTF only, I wonder where it came from.


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## Old Hickory (Aug 19, 2019)

Poa Triv easily pulls up in large handfuls and you should see the spaghetti-like stolon. If not, then ...


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## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

2L8 said:


> Scagfreedom48z+ said:
> 
> 
> > So I have a couple small lime green patches that have popped up and I've gone through the more common characteristic inspections of poa trivialis and I'm a little stumped. I don't see any visible ligule, it is a shiny leaf that is growing quicker than my good turf. In terms of shallow roots, I don't see much of it. It was actually fairly difficult to pull out where when I pulled some samples out, the leaf blades ripped before the roots were pulled. Here are a few pics I took. I'm debating on digging them out because I'm worried that it may be triv but I'm not sure. I still have plenty of seed left over from my overseed.
> ...


I did overseed and existing lawn so maybe it might be PRG? I'm not sure. It looks like crap though. What I think I'm going to do it grow some grass in peat pots, dig out the lime green ugliness and plants the grass. The temps up here are starting to drop so I think plating indoors will be my best bet


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## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

Old Hickory said:


> Poa Triv easily pulls up in large handfuls and you should see the spaghetti-like stolon. If not, then ...


I definitely pulled the suspicious grass in different directions and there certainly wasn't any stolons like that, that I could see. I battled and killed off an insane amount of bent grass and poa triv last year and this grass is different in a few ways


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## 2L8 (Mar 18, 2019)

Scagfreedom48z+ said:


> I did overseed and existing lawn so maybe it might be PRG? I'm not sure. It looks like crap though. What I think I'm going to do it grow some grass in peat pots, dig out the lime green ugliness and plants the grass. The temps up here are starting to drop so I think plating indoors will be my best bet


Cultivating the unidentified grass in pots is a good idea. When it's taller and you find grooves (magnifying glass) on the upper side of the leaves, I would assume it's PRG.

Did you use pure PRG for overseeding?


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## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

2L8 said:


> Scagfreedom48z+ said:
> 
> 
> > I did overseed and existing lawn so maybe it might be PRG? I'm not sure. It looks like crap though. What I think I'm going to do it grow some grass in peat pots, dig out the lime green ugliness and plants the grass. The temps up here are starting to drop so I think plating indoors will be my best bet
> ...


I overseeded with united seed and SSS TTTF. Which is hard to beat when it comes to seed purity


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## john5246 (Jul 21, 2019)

i had some grass like this too, it's bluegrass but it's color is just slightly off, I assumed it was fresh new growth after being dormant. One other person said he thinks it's the same and he has it too.


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## john5246 (Jul 21, 2019)

Now I'm thinking it might be poa annua. I've been spraying prodiamine regularly at the key times. But if one poa annua plant survives you might not notice it right away. Once it spreads you see a "patch" of lime green. I know what poa triv looks like and that's it's not triv. Most of us aren't used to trying to identify without the seed head. Right now there aren't any seed heads.


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## nikmasteed (Apr 30, 2020)

@Scagfreedom48z+ 
Is this stuff much finer-bladed than your TTTF? Your pics look similar to the invasion in my TTTF and compared to my turf this stuff is much finer-bladed but very dense. I also have been trying to rule out triv but like you finding difficult. I don't see any stolons but maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

I've also been thinking this is possibly poa annua but it didnt die during the summer. Either way, I went with pre-emergent this fall instead of overseed in order to give me the best shot to control this

Here's mine









Also, this is a pic of the same stuff from this past June (I'm pretty sure haha, sometimes memory is a hard thing)


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## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

I'd like to post a video, is there a way to do it here? I think it would be easier to do a video vs pictures


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## 2L8 (Mar 18, 2019)

nikmasteed said:


> @Scagfreedom48z+
> Is this stuff much finer-bladed than your TTTF? Your pics look similar to the invasion in my TTTF and compared to my turf this stuff is much finer-bladed but very dense. I also have been trying to rule out triv but like you finding difficult. I don't see any stolons but maybe I'm not looking hard enough.
> 
> I've also been thinking this is possibly poa annua but it didnt die during the summer. Either way, I went with pre-emergent this fall instead of overseed in order to give me the best shot to control this
> ...


At least the last image looks almost like what I have also found in my lawn in early July this year. This should be different from what @Scagfreedom48z+ has. Mine, and probably also yours, has a dull underside of the leaf. There are grooves on the upper leaf side and the color is bluish green.


I think it is common (colonial) bentgrass (Agrostis capsillaris). This has small ligules. But yours, I think I can recognize, has long ones. Your grass could be creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera).


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

@Scagfreedom48z+

I can't help you on this, but I think we have some similar grass. I've never figured out if it's KBG or Triv, or even a hybrid of the two.

You're not the only one stumped. Sometimes it's tough to tell.

Thankfully, the Bluegrass in question doesn't seem to spread super fast.


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## Powhatan (Dec 15, 2017)

Scagfreedom48z+ said:


>


I see what looks like parallel tramlines on the blade which according to this webpage is a characteristic of poa trivialis.

Here's my poa triv that I've been killing and hand-pulling; it also looks to have parallel tramlines. VaTech confirmed this is poa triv due to the characteristic "string of beads" stem/stolons. Apparently this "string of beads" is unique to my area as I don't recall anyone else on this forum board seeing that in their triv.


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## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

I appreciate it guys, thanks for all the insight. I'm glad I'm not the only one running into this. It's definitely standing out like a sore thumb. Once the temps cooled off, it popped up out if no where. I can't remember seeing it during the spring or beginning of the summer. I also sprayed tenacity at seed down and don't recall any signs of bleaching.
Fact is that I'm going to dig it out.
I ordered a bunch of peat pots and I'm going to grow grass indoors, dig the grass out and plant the grass pots and bunch them as close as possible. I don't have a KBG lawn , it's tttf but the spots are small enough and only 1/2 dozen, that the tttf should thicken up and cover the areas well.

Has anyone had success planting grass indoors and transplanting them? I'm going to start this project tomorrow. What would be a sufficient time to grow indoors and transplant?


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

@Scagfreedom48z+ 
@tgreen

I'm starting to put 2 and 2 together...

Some of this grass just never, ever has long ligules, no matter what time of year or how many plants you look at. They're short, like KBG. And the grass is very, very fine bladed.

And some of it is resistant to Certainty (Sulfosulfuron) after 4 apps.
If anything it seems more susceptible to Tenacity in the short-term at least. But it probably recovers.

I'm thinking it may not even be Triv, but another Bluegrass. I don't really think it's KBG though. The color is just too light. And seems to have more stolon-like growth than rhizome-like.

A possible contender for ID is Poa Supina. There is some info on it online if you search. It has short ligules and stolons. And it can look like Poa annua in the Spring, with lots of seedheads, but they tend to have some color to them.

Can't find anything about Poa Supina and Sulfosulfuron susceptibility.

What do you guys think?


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## 2L8 (Mar 18, 2019)

This is what Supina looks like when drought happened after trying to remove thatch:

It has thick stolons with many thin roots. I hoped that the stolons would form new strong roots but they are more shallow than on Triv stolons.


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## jcs43920 (Jun 3, 2019)

Tough to tell. I've dealt with what looked like the exact same stuff. Maybe a crappy Ryegrass? Poa would usually either have the ribbed bladed or some sort of seed head at that height.


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## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

So I went out and took more pics to see if it helps the cause in any way. The spots stand out like a sore thumb but here goes..

The shot of the back yard is pretty easy to find the lime green spot. I also took a shot of the characteristics of what it looks like in dirt. There's no visual stolons that are shallow like I've seen with other triv spots that's I've killed off over the years.


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## tgreen (Oct 20, 2018)

This is a difficult ID. I've highlighted the areas in two of the pics that look like triv. 1) the ligule looks like possible triv and 2) the density and fine-ness of the blades look like triv. It's difficult b/c this is not what triv looks like in my yard at the moment but the OP is in a cooler latitude. Bottom line is I think triv. Wish I could be more definitive.


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## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

tgreen said:


> This is a difficult ID. I've highlighted the areas in two of the pics that look like triv. 1) the ligule looks like possible triv and 2) the density and fine-ness of the blades look like triv. It's difficult b/c this is not what triv looks like in my yard at the moment but the OP is in a cooler latitude. Bottom line is I think triv. Wish I could be more definitive.


Great set of eyes! I honestly split a few leaflets and I couldn't find any ligule trend but I can see now what you are pointing out. I'm going to play it safe and treat it like triv. It's incredible how this crap can literally pop up out of nowhere. It's deflating


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## VALawnNoob (Jun 9, 2020)

Following up on this and seeing if you made any progress or have updates for us. Was there an identification? Did you reno? 
I'm seeing it in my yard and at first thought it was due to young grass from overseed as temp cooled but now wondering if it is PRG , triv or even creeping fescue from a shade mix


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