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Do My Own Lawn Care - How to Properly Use Herbicides

By DoMyOwn staff

Paul's lawn game is still going strong! The turf is looking healthy and there are not a whole lot of issues to tackle. In this video, Paul goes over how well his application was from the previous video and discusses a pretty common problem with home owners, over mixing and over applying herbicides.

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Video Transcript

Beautiful morning to fly and a beautiful morning to get in the lawn.

First order of business, I had to get new sunglasses. The other ones...kids broke them.

Second order of business, I wanted to do a follow up on our last video. Our last video was all about how to identify weeds in your yard. We pin pointed on that was popping up in my yard and treated it with a product that had some Quinclorac, 2 4 D, and Dicamba in it. So let's check out how we did.

Pretty successful application. We didn't burn up any spots in the yard and we took care of most of those weeds that we targeted with that product.

Around the magnolia's a really good example. You can see right here is where I sprayed and over here I didn't. A lot of that brown that you see is the weeds that we targeted and killed off with the product.

You can see right here, it did a really good job of targeting only those weeds, and not harming the Bermuda. So, all in all pretty successful.

In front of my sad pathetic looking hostesses, same story. It was nothing but weeds going up along the front of them, so we targeted and sprayed only those weeds right here. And it's still going to work. A lot of them are still dying off, but it's been pretty successful. They're wilting, they're starting to brown and die off from the yard so that we can try and get Bermuda to fill back in along the front here.

This is one of maybe two or three small areas of turf damage. There was a nice little cluster of weeds right here, got a little heavy handed, did some turf damage around it, but I'm not to worried about it. The Bermuda will bounce back and fill in this area nicely. But it was successful, and I have to chalk it up to proper mixing ratio of the product in my tank. So, that's a nice little segway into our next segment.

In the comments section of that video, a viewer said that they used the same exact product that I did in their Bermuda lawn, but caused a bit of damage. They're pretty sure they mixed it correctly, applied it appropriately, but damage occurred none the less.

Now, what was their mixing ratio, how heavy handed did they get putting it down? I have no idea! Couldn't tell you. But it did raise a question in my mind. Is it a pretty common problem for people to over apply herbicides, and over mix herbicides? So let's talk about that issue.

I've said it a few different times, in a few different videos, label is law. And there's a reason for that. There are people who are a whole heck of a lot smarter than I am, that have done tons of research into how much of a certain product goes into a tank for different turf types, different weeds, all that good stuff.

On the label of the product that I used, it stated that I needed anywhere from one point seven and two point eight fluid ounces per gallon of water, specifically for Bermuda grass. So, I mixed up about two ounces per gallon and just spot treated and it was successful. I didn't burn up my yard and I killed off a lot of the weeds.

Now this brings up a really good point. Every product will go into detail about how much you can put down and in what turf it can go in.

Now a common problem that we hear about is how someone will make a stronger concentration of the product that they're using. In other words if something says it needs an ounce per gallon of water, they'll say, "oh well I'm going to triple that and really kill the weeds!"

This kind of mentality can actually work against you and have some serious negative consequences.

It's always better to do a second application, if the label allows for that, than it is to spray a heavier dose of the concentration.

One of our customer service staff members makes this great analogy. Just like medicine doses are tailored to specific colds or diseases, or even an individual person, so are herbicides for weed control and the surrounding grass.

There's all sorts of different grass types. So it's not only important to make sure that your turf is listed on the label of the product that you've chosen but that you aren't going over the maximum amount that you can put down in that turf as well.

Just make sure to thoroughly read the product label.

Another tip or point that I want to make here is you don't have to drown your weeds. So if you're spraying and it's just dripping off the plant onto the ground, that's a problem.

Think about it like this, if you're spraying so much that it's just rolling off the plant onto the ground, it's not very effective and you'll most likely damage the surrounding turf.

Drowning weeds will just waste product and time. Don't do it!

Nice even uniform applications is what we're striving for.

Another phone call that we get often is how people try to mix up their own chemical concoction to tackle the weed problems in their yard. This should only be done if the label states that you can do so.

Combining chemicals together could increase plant sensitivity and how they react to them. While chemicals alone will not harm a plant, combining them together might.

All the more reason not to increase your chemical doses and refer to the product label to know what you're doing.

Now it's not uncommon to see some damage from spraying herbicides in your turf. Especially in the hot summer sun. But if you're mixing correctly and applying properly most grasses have the ability to bounce back from any kind of damage that you might cause from spraying an herbicide.

Especially if you're mowing properly and irrigating your yard.

Definitely some areas where my application wasn't effective, but over all I am so happy with where my yard is at.

I remember a time when my yard use to look like that, just chalked full of weeds. Not anymore!

Remember how there use to be a whole bunch of monkey grass along the drive way right here, and I ripped it out in hopes of having the grass grow in? Well it's doing pretty good. But I have plans of making it do even better. But that's another video for another time.

And there we go! Just wanted to do a quick follow up on that application from the last video. Also wanted to touch on the dangers of over applying and over mixing herbicides in hopes that you don't burn up your yard and mess up all of your hard work!

Still very happy with where my lawn is at. The lawn game is strong! I hope yours is as well!

As always I hope you found that helpful, and if you have any further questions, you know what you can do! You can leave them in the comments section below, email our customer service staff or pick up the phone and give them a call.

Make sure to subscribe to the channel by clicking this button. You can click this playlist to see all the videos in the Do My Own Lawn Care series. And click this playlist to see the Do My Own Gardening series where we're learning what it takes to grow and maintain a raised garden bed.

As always, thanks for watching!