As lawns are greening up, many calls are coming in about damage left over from last summer or perhaps even winter damage. Unfortunately, spring seeding is difficult at best because of pending hot weather and/or weed and disease pressure. Late summer (August) is easily the best time to seed cool-season grasses, but sometimes turf must be seeded in the spring. The following points should help improve the success of spring seeding:
1. Seed as soon as possible.
2. Improve the seed-soil contact by aerfying, power raking, and/or hand raking before seeding. After seeding, a light raking will further mix the seed and soil or a light rolling will push the seed into better contact with soil.
3. Water lightly and often to keep the seedbed moist.
4. Avoid any preemergence crabgrass or postemergence herbicide applicationsfor crabgrass or dandelions until the seedlings are established and mowed at least 3 or 4 times, which might be May or later depending on the weather. The exception to this is any preemergence products containing siduron. Since all herbicides have slightly different restrictions, be sure to check the label of your specific product for specifics. See the Turf Tip from 4/10/2008 for more details.
5. Since the seedlings will not develop a good root system until next fall, keep the newly seeded areas well-watered all summer.
Much more information is available in “AY-20: Seeding a Turf Area in the Spring” at http://www.agry.purdue.edu/turf/pubs/ay-20.pdf.