Question
This past fall I put in a brand new lawn, seeded with pennington tall fescue. Is beautiful except the straw mulch must of had a lot of seed in it and now there is a substantial amount of straw growing with the turf. Any suggestion?

Answer
Good afternoon Dave:
A certain amount of weeds are inevitable with a new lawn. I believe that most of your weeds are annual grassy weeds.
Annual grass weeds are grass weeds that germinate from seed, grow to maturity, produce seed and die within a 12 month period. These annual grass weeds are usually lighter green in color, have wider leaf blades and possess more spreading growth habits than the cultured cool season turfgrasses. To ensure annual grass weeds do not establish in home lawns, both important preventive and control programs must be implemented. The invasion of annual grass weeds can be prevented to a large degree by maintaining a dense, healthy stand of grass. A high quality lawn will develop a highly competitive canopy which will shade the soil surface and discourage the germination and establishment of seedling annual grass weeds. Most annual grass weed seeds germinate in the top 1/2 inch of the soil.
Keep your lawn mowed at a height of 2 ?to 3 inches and remove no more than 1/3 of the grass blades at each mowing. If you do this faithfully the annual weeds will not set seed for next year. They will die out on their own and the new grass will take over. This fall you can control any broad leaf weeds  by using a broad leaf weed killer such as 2-4-D (Weed-Be-Gone). You will only need to apply it selectively rather than on the whole lawn.
Have a good lawn!
Floyd McMahon