Question
Kenneth -

I have a relatively young lawn (seeded in fall of 2005), which is slowly coming into place.  The homebuilder seeded with fescue, and there are some empty patches still.  I'm thinking I need to overseed the lawn in order to build up the turf density; however I'm also battling crabgrass and now is the time to prevent it.  From what I understand, pre-emergent blocks the germination of crab grass, but will also block the germination of new grass seed.

Any suggestions on how I can get my grass to grow in fuller this year and control crabgrass at the same time?

I live in Charlotte, NC.

Thanks.


Answer
Don't worry about using a pre-emergent herbicide how. It is too late anyway in Charlotte. Grab grass seeds germinate when soil temperatures are consistently above 55F-60F for 7-10 days or more. I bet you this has happened in Charlotte, already (I was there myself two weeks ago when the cooler weather was setting in, but the warmer temperatures just before that was likely to have prompted seeds to germinate).

If you wish to use pre-emergent herbicides, then scott's turfbuilder starter fertilizer has a special type which has tuppersan included. Tuppersan is a pre-emergent which you can use when starting seeds. Talk to a local garden center about ordering this specific types of scott's turfbuilder starter fertilizer w/crabgrass control (if they do not stock it).

Note: Scott's have two "normal" fertilizer types:
- scott's turfbuilder starter fertilizer
- scott's turfbuilder with crabgrass control

Recently, they started to market a "scott's turfbuilder starter fertilizer w/crabgrass control" (which used tuppersan as the active ingredient against crabgrass)