I thought this was crabgrass at first. It doesn't brown in the cold and won't respond to crabgrass killer. It grows in clumps with a crown like shape, some jutting out sideways and some growing up. Help. [/img]
See if Quackgrass fits the bill (pun intended). Elytrigia repens Other Names: Agropyron repens, Elymus repens, Triticum repens, couch grass, devils-grass, knot-grass, quick grass, quitch grass, scutch-grass, twitch, wheat grass.
This grass does not look like what we call crab grass, which is a dicotyledon, your broad leaf herbicide won't kill this. It looks like quack grass to me, which is a monocotyledon. Quack grass grows with an "underground runner" better known as a rhizome. Every time you pull or till the "weed" you spread the rhizomes around and they continue to grow, but even worse. I have read, I don't know if it works though, that if you add calcium to the ground it will make the soil unsuitable to host the weed. Monocotyledon is a plant that germinates with a single blade as it emerges from the seed, hence MONO-cotyledon. Dicotyledon is a plant that emerges with TWO cotelydons (the first two "leaves" that emerge from the seed) hence DI-cotelydons. A broadleaf herbicide is only effective on dicotyledons. Which is pretty much anything other than grass. Hope this helps to explain why the weed killer won't work. Round up should be effective, but it will kill everything it comes in contact with. Then you will need to spot re-seed.
