# Help identifying this bright green grass/weed



## evensen007 (May 30, 2019)

Hey all,

I started from scratch and tore my yard down to the clay. Did all the testing, amendments, prep etc. I put down Jonathan Green Black beauty ultra seed (70/20/10 Tall fescue/Bluegrass/Rye) and it came in fantastic! The time between the 1st and second picture is just over 6 weeks. I am very happy, but have this pervasive swath of bright emerald green grass that looks awkward among the dark green fescue and bluegrass. I thought I had it ID'd as yellow nutsedge/nutgrass but I was wrong. These stalks/stems are completely round and the sedge-hammer did nothing. The grass/weed blade is much thicker than the others, and grows twice as tall and fast. I thought maybe it was the 10% Rye, but it's only concentrated in a certain area of the yard. I started pulling it out by hand and it comes up easy enough. Now I'm also wondering if it's the 10% Rye that for some reason propagated in that area and may be low in Nitrogen. Can you help? This is in the Western North Carolina Blue Ridge mountains outside of Asheville at an elevation of about 3800ft.



http://imgur.com/403bjkm


----------



## Rile78 (May 14, 2018)

I zoomed in the best I could on the last picture and I believe you are dealing with Quackgrass. The color is similar to poa but the leaf blade is too wide. See if you can find one that looks like this picture...that clasping auricle where the leaf meets the stem is a dead giveaway.


----------



## Rile78 (May 14, 2018)

Just noticed something in one of the pics, do I see remnants of straw? Did you by chance use straw to cover the seed? If so it is very likely those bails are how the quackgrass seeds got introduced to your lawn. Those suckers are notorious for being found in a lot of the bailed straw you buy at big box stores.

The only non-selective herbicide option that I know of is Certainty (Sulfosulfuron). I've never used this product so maybe someone who has can give you advice on how to apply it. I know it's pricey but similar to Tenacity rates a little goes a really long way.


----------



## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

It could be annual rye grass. What was there before? How did you kill it?


----------



## GrassFarmer (Sep 21, 2017)

I dont see quack grass much in wheat fields but wheat could be in the straw and wheat has auricles that clasp and look close to quack.


----------



## evensen007 (May 30, 2019)

GREAT responses from both of you! Either one could be correct. I will take a closer picture of one of the stalks pulled from the ground. The reason I say either may be correct is:

1.Rile: I DID use straw at first to cover all the seed. Tons of it. I realized shortly after that I had put way too thick of a layer on top of the seeds, and it started molding underneath. I also read shortly after that you can accidentally transplant lots of weeds this way. I pulled all the straw and went and got some good Peat moss to cover the seeds. Random neighbor told me to use straw and I listened... Live and learn!

2. G-Man: When the house was completed last year, we didn't have any budget left over to do landscaping. To get to code, the builder put down what I thought was beautiful perennial grass, but learned the hard way in late summer that it was just annual Rye to get to code. It all dried up and died (or so I thought) by end of summer but since it was 'annual', I thought that meant goodbye never to return. Now that I think of it, while the grass was beautiful last spring after the house was built it was kind of an emerald green color. I also didn't do anything like Roundup this spring to kill what was left. As you can see in the 1st pic, there wasn't much left so I just raked the crap out of it, tilled, and then went on to correct the soil .

Hmm. I may just pull these by hand and try not to disturb too much of the fescue/blue grass coming up and just put more seed down to try and drown it out.

Thanks so much guys!


----------



## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Annual ryegrass, like POA annua, could die in the summer heat if not irrigated. But it does produce a lot of seeds. The seeds then grow whenever the weather starts to get cold/wet.


----------



## evensen007 (May 30, 2019)

g-man said:


> Annual ryegrass, like POA annua, could die in the summer heat if not irrigated. But it does produce a lot of seeds. The seeds then grow whenever the weather starts to get cold/wet.


Thanks G-man. Given that it's not a huge area and I don't mind the work, would it be best to just manually pull the Rye that's re-growing?


----------



## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Yes


----------

