Pre-emergent(crabgrass preventative)

Have you made your crabgrass pre-emergent application yet this season?  Its getting close to the time to get this product applied.  Our zoysia application was made in February in combination with RoundUp to kill the poa annua that had germinated.  If you've played the course in the last month, you can see the dead spots of poa annua.  Don't worry, there is zoysia under most of those spots that will fill in once the warm weather arrives for good.  There are a few small spots that we missed  which you can see but overall we had a good application and kill this season.

This past week we have been applying our crabgrass pre-emergent in the rough.  We use the chemical name Prodamine which is commonly known as Barricade or other generic brands.  There is also a product called Dithiopyr(Dimension) that is a good product as well.  This season, we are applying a granulated formulation  on a 0-0-7 potassium fertilizer product at about 185 #'s an acre.  We will be applying about 8,000#'s of material to our roughs, around our tees and on the cool season tees which is only about 5 tee surfaces.  The growing degree models are showing we are still on the low side of the range but we are getting closer each day and wanted to get most of this application down so we can get some rain on it which will release the chemical to the soil surface and will bind with the soil.  The pre-emergent disrupts cell division when it is trying to germinate which leads to its death.  Our grass is happy with this death because it has less competition and I'm happy because we have a purer stand of grass.

Spreader that we use on the large rough area.  It will hold comfortably about 700#'s of product.  We use walk spreaders on the tight areas around greens, bunkers, tees etc.  This spreader will throw about 20' feet on either side of the application, more or less.