Question
Is quackgrass the same as nutgrass and what is the best way to get rid of it?

Answer
Elba, Quackgrass -- "Elytrigia repens" -- is aggressive, it's perennial and it's found in Rye straw and fed to horses with daily feed to develop a shiny coat.  If you don't have horses, Elba, there's not much other use for it.

For some good photographs see the Michigan State University IPM Program quackgrass page (www.ipm.msu.edu/CAT01_fld/FC04-12-01figQuackgrass.htm).  Does this look like your weed?  

I hope not.  

Quackgrass is a good excuse to use that SAT word UBIQUITOUS, because this plant grows EVERYWHERE you don't want it and nothign is more ubiquitous than this stuff.

The State of Michigan has placed this weed on its official list of the Top 5 Most Common Weeds in the state.

Quackgrass grows from thin, steel-strong, underground rhizomes that look like harmless roots but just won't die.  Young plants take 2-3 months to develop the underground cables.

That means that you have a maximum three month window to get at baby Quackgrass -- wait longer, and it's a whole new ballgame.

It's those rhizomes that put Quackgrass in a class all by itself.  And if you Rototill a plot where just one Quackgrass plant is growing, you chop the rhizomes into little pieces that grow roots all over the place and take over your plot the way the Germans took over Europe.   A
mature plant produces apx 25 seeds after flowering in July; seeds remain viable as long as 4 years.

Nutgrass ("Cyperus rotundus") is famous in certain parts of the country for being one of the scariest weeds on earth.

If Quackgrass is Ubiquitous, Nutgrass is INSIDIOUS.  It grows up through pool liners, into asphalt, through building basements.

Starting with the Mississippi State University Agriculture extension (turf.lib.msu.edu/1920s/1929/2912225.pdf#search='nut%20grass%20organic'), we learn that "In the South, coco or nutgrass is one of the worst weeds in golf course turf."

They point out that there is NO chemical treatment to eradicate Nutgrass (the pro-herbicide, anti-hominum ad captandum vulgus arguments by Scotts et al. notwithstanding).  They describe vaguely effective treatments that carry the Long Island Gardener Seal of Approval: Table Salt and some other Chlorides, applied at
certain rates, and used in sand traps, by the desperate greenskeepers between prayers.

Tell me Elba you are asking for educational purposes and not to eliminate these from your lawn?

Depending on what you have, there are different treatments.  

rsvp!