What is this type of grass (weed)?

Question

Every year I am getting more of this type of grass. From a distance it looks like regular grass, is dense, grows in patches, spreads and is a bit lighter than my normal grass. And is there a fix? I live in Pennsylvania. Thank you.

Answer 1

There is a reason there is crabgrass and many other weeds in your lawn. You need to learn the proper maintenance techniques for cool season grass crops...lawns. There should be no problems with weeds if you are mowing NO LOWER than 3". Are you watering once per week no more? If you are watering more than once per week your grasses have not been trained for deep roots. Weeds have shallow roots, cool season lawn grasses have genetically deep roots. Easy to train your grasses to have deep roots and be able to deny weeds enough water for life. Do you aerate once per year? By pulling plugs of soil out of your lawn bed and allowing them to disintegrate where they land? And do you fertilize 3 to 4 times per year? Do you bag your clippings? Bare basics that will ensure no weeds or few weeds in your lawn. Have you even tested the pH of the soil of your lawn bed?

If you are doing the basics for proper cool season lawn care you will NEVER need to use any pesticide (herbicide, fungicide any cide). Trimec is a bandaid as are preemergents. You never ever need to use this stuff.

We have tons of question/answers about cool season lawn care. Seriously, when you learn how to tame this lawn monster, it becomes a kitten. If someone has problems with their lawn it means they need to learn the basic maintenance practices that will save them time and money and their investment in lawn.

Answer 2

This is the type of weed known as crabgrass. It is very evident in laws and grass plots later in the summer when the dry and hot conditions suppress the finer grasses and the crabgrass can take over.

It's a good question, but there are no clear cut answers. There have been many previous discussions on this topic (identification, control and so on) so the first thing to do is a search in these forums on "crabgrass" to get up to speed with what others have already asked. There have been some very good answers as indicated by the upvotes. If you find that you have a related issue not covered by previous discussions then perhaps edit the question to indicate the new detail.

Answer 3

I have this same weed in my lawn. I am pretty sure its crabgrass. as for the fix there are no permanent fix for weeds. However, people recommended using Gordon's Trimec Lawn Weed Killer Concentrate or Roundup for lawns. I have friends that used these products and it killed most of the weeds. you must spray these products every year because weeds does comeback year after year. I would also suggest to ask you local garden center for other solutions.