From: gwv@eastrg2.cray.com (George Vandenberghe)
Subject: Re: Burmuda Grass
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Distribution: na
Date: 18 Dec 92 15:51:59 CST


In article <1992Dec18.194403.16961@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>, dmiller@theory.lcs.mit.edu (Dick and Jill Miller) writes:
|> >
|> >If you are thinking about planting bermuda grass, THINK AGAIN!!
|> >I don't know you, but I consider myself your friend. DON'T PLANT BERMUDA
|> >GRASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
|> 
|> This sounds similar to what we in New England call witch grass which is 
|> called quack grass by my Dad from Minnesota.  If so, you have my sympathy.  
|> Is it indeed the same?  Kay, help?  Latin names?
|> 
|> --Jill
|> 
|> --
|> A. Richard & Jill A. Miller            | Miller Microcomputer Services |
|> InterNet: dmiller@im.lcs.mit.edu       | 61 Lake Shore Road            |
|> Voice: 508/653-6136, 9am-9pm EasternTZ | Natick, MA 01760-2099, USA    | 
|> 

     No Bermuda grass and quack grass are different species and probably
genera with somewhat different growth habits which nevertheless, in areas
where they are adapted, make them both horrible grassy pests.
     Bermuda grass spreads by above ground stolons and shallow
below ground rhizomes and is of finer texture
than quack grass.  In the deep South and Southwest it makes a good to excellent
lawn but it is very invasive of flowerbeds and sidewalk cracks and other
places where it is not wanted.  As a lawn grass it is hardy to about 10F but
individuals in protected places will survive lower temperatures.  It is sometimes
attempted just north of its hardiness zone because it is a pretty summer grass
but there is then the risk of a severe winter wiping out the entire lawn (probably
with a few survivors in the flowerbed too!!)  Here in Washington DC I see it often
but it is not too much of a problem.  I do not have trouble with quack grass here.
Incidentally DC is one of those areas where bermuda is occasionally attempted in
a lawn or golf course fairway only to be wiped out every decade or so.   (Probably
except for survivors in flowerbeds and sidewalk cracks)  
    Quack grass is well adapted to areas too far North for bermuda grass.  It is
too coarse and sparse to make a lawn but is extremely weedy in vegetable gardens.
I encountered it at Penn State and my experience with it  there  in a
vegetable garden was much worse than my experience with bermuda grass in
Tallahassee Florida five years later.  Quack grass spreads by underground
rhizomes (spelling uncertain) and if you rototill, each little piece will survive and has enough
food to send a shoot up through many inches of soil.   It is much harder
to eradicate by tillage and weeding than bermuda grass; if you pull up bermuda grass
by hand, you will probably get most of it and it will take a month or so for the
few little pieces to come back.  If you pull up quack grass, you get the leaves, the
underground rhizomes remain with most of the food and it is back in two weeks.
I have not had much trouble with it in Washington DC or New Jersey (Princeton)
Here in DC I have more trouble with annual grasses in the vegetable garden than with
either of these two grasses.  I use bluegrass and tall fescue in my lawn but also
have patches of bermuda; the thing that probably saves my lawn from being overridden
by it is the same 50% shade that I am usually cursing.
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