Crabgrass in a lawn can be frustrating and difficult to control. With a combination use of post-emergent and pre-emergent weed controls, you can defeat crab grass. Treatment with a post-emergent weed control after the problem has appeared is useful, but spraying with a pre-emergent weed control also will help prevent future outbreaks.

In dire situations or in areas where the turf is old, a complete kill and reseeding of the area might be what is needed. When turf gets older, it becomes more and more easily overrun with weeds. This might make your weed control efforts useless. If worse comes to worse, apply an herbicide that will kill the whole turf and start from scratch.

Remember to wait until you've got three or four good cuts from your newly planted turf before spraying pre-emergent herbicides. A pre-emergent herbicide requires shorter grass but the lawn should not be so new that the herbicide will affect the grass germination process. After applying a pre-emergent herbicide, wet the area that you've just sprayed. The herbicide will not work otherwise.

Proper Spraying Technique

When you're spraying herbicide, walk backwards so that you're walking away from the herbicide that is being sprayed. Also try to walk against the wind (remember, you're walking backwards) so that if any herbicide is getting blown around, it is away from you. Take a shower and launder the clothes you were wearing immediately after spraying your lawn so that your skin doesn't become irritated by the herbicide.