[Lawn Lad]

So we just put in a lawn and guess what popped up. Not a few grass weeds, but over 60% of the lawn is covered with some sort of grass that is so dense its overgrowing the new grass growing in.

I've never had this problem to this degree before. My questions are:

1) What would this grass/sedge likely be?
2) Am I better off trying to chemically control what has grown in and reseeding thin areas or
3) Should I replace the lawn; Round-up and reseed?

Being late in the year I'm trying to determine if there is anything that can be done now or if I'm waiting until next spring.

Never having had this problem before is this type of issue a fluke or does this occur often? We only go through 40 or 50 bales a year of straw. What would have caused this batch to give off this kind of weed seed? Do suppliers have any accountability with the products they sell, or is this buyer beware?

[Bamboo]

Sounds like you got a nice weed seed filled order of hay. You might be able to "wick" on some strange weed killing chemical or mabye you are lucky and the weed is an annual so you could till it in and reseed it.
We use either peatmoss or steer manure or redwood soil conditioner as mulch. Ive only seen caltrans use straw.
Is straw used often over there?

[Greensmith]

Can you post pics of the offending grass? Maybe we can tell what it is. A lot of people are switching to salt hay around us in central NJ.

[Rob Shauger]

Any luck with a picture of that funky grass?

[Lawn Lad]

I stopped out last week and took the picture, I'll try to download and post w/in the day. Thanks for your patience.

[Lawn Lad]

Well, okay, so now that spring is here I have to figure out what to do with this lawn. Here are some pictures of the lawn, close ups and we found a couple weeks after the installation that one of the bales of straw sprouted the same growth.

So identification wise I think it's safe to assume this is straw that is in the lawn... and I'm hoping there is a selective way to deal with this.

[Lawn Lad]

Here is a close up of the grass in question...

[Lawn Lad]

Here is a picture of what I pulled from the lawn, with new grass and straw, etc.

[Lawn Lad]

Here is a picture of the bale of straw which sprouted after sitting out in the yard - a little rain, sunshine and look what you get.

When it comes to buying straw - can this be avoided in the future? I've had this happen now on two jobs when buying from the same vendor last year. I've never had this problem with this vendor or others in the past.

[GLAN]

That's why I am glad our general practice when seeding is to top dress with peat moss, compost or composted topsoil.

I have used Salt Hay for fall displays and found we had the same weed problem after removing the bales

[Lawn Lad]

This whole experience has me doubting the use of straw. It's too costly to have to redo work again. Particularly if I'm faced with kiling the lawn and starting over again.

The cost of peat moss per square foot is significantly more. Further, watering is sometimes tricky if you get a thick spot since the peat moss absorbs so much water, it doesn't soak through to the soil if mis applied. In this way peat moss is less forgiving. We use when spot seeding in existing lawns, but rarely use it when installing new lawns unless its going to be cut with a reel mower (creeping bent). As well, sometimes the grass will take root in the peat moss instead of the soil. If kept moist not a problem, but a little drying out at that critical stage and that seeding is toast.

I've thought about buying a hydro seeder - so I can use it for the mulching aspect. We do small lawns as you can see, so one that would cover 5,000 at a time would be fine. I don't know what happens to cost yet as I've not researched this enough, but I'm sure it's more than straw, but it it eliminated this risk, it might be worth it. It might also be quicker than hand spreading straw, not sure given a small area and all the obstacles. Better yet, if it produces a better result, or provides me with an option for pregerminating seed by putting the seed in the night before, or the like, it might be even better.

[Pelican]

It's tough to tell from the pictures, but it looks a lot like "Timothy" to me. Timothy is grown for hay. It doesn't do well if cut short as in lawn mowing, so it should just fade away in time as the desired grasses mature.

The way to avoid this in the future is to buy hay that was harvested before the seed tassels have matured. It will be tough to determine this once it's in bale form, you'll need a reputable supplier.

[Dale Wiley]

I don't think its timothy... the straw blades are too big for a grass.

I think you have a nice crop of wheat going on there. All straws are going to contain some seeds of the parent crop. Some farmers do a poor job of making sure their electronic sensors tell them how much wheat is going out the back of the combine and then you get a lot of seeds back on the field and in the thrashed material coming out the back of the combine.

Only way to get rid of it is to spray it out and start over. Make sure you think you have it all germinated before you spray it and you still may find some seeds in the soil.

Or you could let it grow and harvest it....

[Fine Edge]

Probably wheat. Down here in NC, we see it all the time since that is what everyone uses to cover their seed. Most of the time it rarely presents a problem and we just mow it as the grass is growing.
It's not a very long life cycle down here, maybe 3 - 4 months from planting to harvest. Cheap too since there's lots of farmland. The field beside my house is already 12" tall!

[Lawn Lad]

It's still there this year in the lawn, showing no signs of going dormant or dying... in fact, the same bale of straw that is shown in the pictures is still outside and is starting to show growth again this spring.