Vol. 15—1961 - NorthEastern Weed Science Society

.. ; ~:; .
-
At the present time# a majority of people ar striving to
improve their social status which makes weed cont 01 in the lawn
~ very important area'of work for research and e~ ension people.
'The people with whomwe are dealing believe in sc ence and are
anxious to make use ofsc1ent1flc knowledge if th y can obtain
res:i.il~s. J;n the long run# any number of chemical can be promoted
"and sold and used$ but the only ones wh1ch ill last are
those which give results.
As one of our homeowners put it# "I've been aving natural
luck w1th my lawn1but I don't like naturalness. I want to know
what I'm doing and what's going on."
Most of our homeowners are rat10nal thinking human beings
and although they have limited agricultural knowl dge, they are
alert enough to recognize the differeneebetween ood results
and failures when they try to control weeds.
I believe that our home lawn weed problems c n be divided
into two areas. First, weeds which are a problem at the time of
establishing a new lawn, and second, weeds which rea problem
in maintenance.
'
Many of the weeds which used to be a problem in new lawns,
can now be p~evented by using materials to make a weed free seed
bed. The use of calcium cyanamid has been a step in this direction,
to kill weed seeds before the grass seed is lanted. Ex~
cellent'results have been obtained from cyanamid y many landscapers
and homeowners. However, many are' often isappolnted
because old grass clumps are not killed by the cy namid treatment
and these clumps destroy the unif9rmity of the ne lawn.
The newer materials such as Vapam or VFMare more effective
since they will kill weed seeds to a greater dept and will also
kill the old sod residue from the previous lawn. Killing these
old sod clumps is especially important if these e umps contain
bentgrass and if the new laWn is to be lO~ merio bluegrass.
Bentgrass growing in a,meJ;'lon bluegrass lawn is 0 of our worst
weed problems. How to remove bent from a merion 1 wn is a question
that we have been hearing more and more freq ntly in recent
years.