Question
Have you ever dealt with "quack grass" and how do you get rid of it?

ref: {http://www.trimpines.com/LandscapeTips/homegrown/05-12-06.htm}

Answer
Quackgrass - 'Elytrigia repens' or 'Agropyron repens' to botanists -  is an aggressive, perennial, ugly Weed.  It has one redeeming quality: Farmers feed it to their horses to build a shiny coat.  But if you don't  have horses, there's just no good reason to grow Quackgrass.  And it sounds  like you are telling me that Quackgrass has taken over your Zipcode.

Please take a quick look at the photos posted on the Michigan State IPM Program quackgrass page:

http://www.ipm.msu.edu/CAT01_fld/FC04-12-01figQuackgrass.htm

Does this look like your Weed?

I hope not.

As I have said before, Quackgrass is a good excuse to use that S.A.T. word UBIQUITOUS.  Because it grows EVERYWHERE you don't want it.  Nothing is more ubiquitous than Quackgrass.

Which is why the State of Michigan has placed this weed on its official list of the 5 Most Common Weeds.  And why one of its nicknames is WITCHGRASS.

Quackgrass grows from wiry, underground rhizomes as strong as steel - but they look like harmless roots.  No matter what you do to them, THEY WILL NOT DIE.

Those rhizomes put Quackgrass in a class all by itself.  If you Rototill a plot where just ONE (1) Quackgrass plant is growing, you chop the rhizomes into pieces that grow roots all over the place.

After flowering, a mature Quackgrass specimen yields around 25 seeds.  Seeds can remain viable for up to 4 YEARS.

The organic Henry Doubleday Research Assn (HRDA) has posted some promising observations for managing this menace:

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/research/news/story.php?id=346

One point they make: Crop Rotation might work.  'The first is a buckwheat-buckwheat-rye cover crop rotation.  The other combination is a thickly sown mixture of barley-oats-Canadian field peas.  This planting would be available for grazing, silage, or green manure.'

I have not ruled out slash-and-burn as one possible answer to noxious weeds like this.  But I don't know if it will work, either.  Done wrong, and you burn up the soil and wreck it just as though you'd tilled for weeks.  And what good is that if dormant Quackgrass seeds and strings of Quackgrass rhizomes are still viable when the fire's been put out?

Solarization will kill microbes near the soil surface, but it will take the weeds with it - trouble is, it takes a full season so it is only useful when you're trying to steer someone away from RoundUp.

I am not a fan of pouring sugar into the soil to "feed" microbes.  You'll go much, much farther if you introduce microbes with Compost Tea.  But that's for another day.  After I get some sleep.