Too Late for Pre-Emergent "Weed and Feed" on Your Turf

Adam Gore, Extension Agent in Abbeville, who’s getting his PhD in turf, talked with us recently about not being in a hurry to get your warm-season turfgrass greened up. Although those big box stores have weed and feed conveniently and temptingly located near the checkout stand right now, March and April are one hundred percent not the right months to put out these products. As a matter of fact, there is never a time in South Carolina with warm season turfgrass – Centipede, Bahia, St. Augustine or Bermuda – to apply those two products simultaneously. You’ve missed the window for pre-emergents – that should have been in February and you can harm your lawn if you jump the gun on fertilizer – wait until May, and probably mid-May at that, when the grass is beginning active growth and can actually use those nutrients.