We have all heard that turf grass is competitive to weeds and other plants in the landscape.  There are several turf grass types grown in California. In southern California, Bermuda grass is the more common planting though Turf-type tall fesc ue is also used as well as other species to a lesser extent. Smooth and large crabgrass are the most prevalent summer annual grass weeds found in turfgrass in California. Can we devise systems using turf type, renovation (planting) time to establish a competitive, cool season, tall fescue turf and control crabgrass?

Several years ago with graduate student J. Graham Davis, and current farm advisor in Napa County, John Roncoroni, we developed experiments to study this concept. We chose...