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Sedges like the one seen in the photos are starting to become more of a problem with rainfall and warmer temperatures. While they resemble grasses, they are in a totally different plant family. Sedges have triangular stems with leaves that are three-ranked at the base while grasses only have two ranks. Most of the herbicides used for grassy weed control are not effective on them. The closeup photo shows a typical yellow nutsedge leaf which is yellowish green in color, very shiny and with a long taper to the tip.
Sedges thrive in soils that remain wet for extended periods of time. The first control step is to correct the cause of continuously wet soils. Do not overirrigate and correct drainage that may keep areas unnecessarily wet.
There are many different types of sedges. Some are annuals but the most problematic are perennials so preemergent herbicides will not be effective for control. Many of them spread by underground tubers so systemic herbicides are the only effective means of total control. Multiple applications are often necessary to be most effective.
The herbicides which are recommended for home lawn or landscape areas include the following:
Warm-season turf including bermudagrass, zoysiagrasss, centipedegrasss and St.Augustinegrass = Image (imazaquin), Sedgehammer or Prosedge (halosulfuron), and Certainty (sulfosulfuron)
Warm-season turf including bermudagrass and zoysiagrass = Monument (trifloxysulfuron)
All turf including both warm-season and cool-season species = Basagran (bentazon), Sedgehammer or Prosedge (halosulfuron)
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