I'm currently battling a very similar weed after a complete lawn restoration in September 2013 so it looks like we could have the same problem. By the end of January it was completely weed free but I noticed these weeds popping up by mid February. The stuff I have is very easy to pull up after a rain when he soil is very moist and it doesn't appear to be spreading from the roots. I was thinking its crabgrass that germinated in the fall and sat dormant through the winter. Only problem with that theory is that we have had several heavy frosts and a couple snows which didn't kill them. I would have thought this would have killed crabgrass, right? The seed I used was the Hogan Tall Fescue blend from the Hogan company which clearly states on the label 0% weed and 0% other crop so I'm positive this weed didn't come from the seed. I did use straw I purchased from a local company so I'm thinking if this weed is orchard grass the straw is most likely where it came from. Some of these weeds in my lawn are just individual while there are others in small groups which to me indicates they were in the straw, some as complete seed heads while others were just individual seeds. Last weekend I put out an application of Prodiamine 65 WDG (Barricade) pre em in hopes it would keep more of this stuff from germinating but it doesn't say anything about controlling orchard grass. So far I have manually pulled about 50% of it but that's not much fun on 20,000 square feet of lawn with my beat up old knees! I did spot spray a week ago with Ortho Weed-B-Gon crabgrass killer which seems to be hurting it a little. Going to wait another week and do a second spot treatment and see what happens. Here's the photo of my weed for comparison: This post was edited by ForsheeMS on Sat, Mar 8, 14 at 9:42

You can find better pre-emergents at suppliers like John Deere/ Lesco (they've merged) than the home improvement stores. I agree with dchall, in my own findings granular pre-emergents don't perform as well as the liquid. The field testing that that the manufacturers site (so take that with a grain of salt) suggest that they perform about the same. If you're after grassy weeds, such as crabgrass, dimension is a great pre-em. If you're seeing a lot of both grassy and broadleaf, Prodiamine is a good alternative. The advantage with Prodiamine is that it is much cheaper to manufacture and has a number of generic versions. The 2-4D that Dchall mentioned is definitely a safe alternative in cool-season grasses for broadleaf weeds. Another, if you have trouble with crabgrass this season is Quinclorac. Quinclorac has the major advantage of being safe on Fescue even when it has just been seeded. To my knowledge it is the only herbicide that can boast that. If you mix it with a methylated seed oil, you have a good crabgrass control. The only odd exception is crabgrass that is in the intermediate stage, between newly emerged and mature quinclorac won't give any control during this period. As for the bright green grass, it isn't uncommon when you've been seeding so see color differences. Tiemco is correct about KBG being a dark green when it matures. There is a definite possibility that what you've seeded has come up much darker than what was there before. I ran across this today with a Fescue lawn that I seeded last Fall. The cheaper Fescue that was in the lawn looked much brighter than the cultivars that I used which included Speedway, Davinci and Blackwatch. So it's entirely possible, that the brighter colored grass was a lower quality Fescue, such as K31 that was there before. All the same, make sure that you don't over-do the seeding, which can lead to over-crowding and cause die-back or pythium blight in the up-coming months. Also, it's good to use a blend. There are a number of improved varieties of both bluegrass and fescue on the market today, which offer advantages over the older cultivars. For example, you can buy a mix of thermal blue, which is 10% bluegrass and the other 90% is made up of 3 different Fescue cultivars. It's highly drought tolerant and disease resistant. Either way, good luck and thanks for sharpening our skills with your question.

I realize we seem harsh in our review of your situation. You can't always pick the best times to have your plumbing replaced. And yes, I have had both incoming and sewage replaced. All the disturbed soil was mounded back up over trenches and, three years later, everything is as level as it started. If you had low spots to begin with, then you did need more soil for the exact reasons you mentioned. Do I understand that you continued watering 2-3x per day for a month after planting? Or after the first sprouts popped? Or some other reference? The problem with your mix of seeds is that ryegrass pops in a week. If you back off on watering then, which seems to be a strong inclination, then neither the fescue nor the KBG will sprout. Fescue sprouts at 2 weeks minimum and KBG will not sprout until 3 weeks of continual moisture. The reason you have yellowish grass in spots might be that you only have one variety of grass there rather than the blend. You have to suspend the 1/3 rule in the heat of summer. Besides that rule is like the Pirate's Code - more of what you would call guidelines than actual rules. At this point I would treat the weeds as if they were your favorite grass. If nothing else they are green and covering a bare spot in the soil. About mid August you can start worrying about how to get rid of them. For example, crabgrass dies by itself in the fall. It is an annual plant that only lives a few months. If you have weeds that go to seed in a week, you should try to mow the seed heads before they become seeds. Use a string trimmer or something so you are not mowing the grass too short. There are spot weed treatments you can use, too. Weed-B-Gone spray works as does fire and sometimes boiling water. Obviously some are worse than others. The weed hound is a great tool for plucking tap rooted weeds. If you spray weeds, just moisten the leaves of the weed, don't drench the soil. You should also start watering longer and see if you can skip a day now and then. With your sprinkler output, ideally you would be watering for 2 hours once per week during the heat of summer and 2 hours once per month the rest of the non-frozen months. But since your new grass is used to daily watering, you cannot get there cold turkey. You have to ease your way up to once per week watering. Yes, the surface will dry out. That's good. Weed seeds need continual surface moisture in order to sprout. When you allow the surface to dry completely, most weeds are stopped. If you would like to fertilize over the summer, you can use organic fertilizer any time you want. Milorganite is popular but I prefer plain alfalfa pellets (rabbit food). Apply at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. In 3 weeks you'll see a deep dark green. Whether you see quicker growth in the heat of summer just depends. It will improve things, though. You can apply every week, every month, or just once. It all helps improve your soil. You...

I've seen the soda apple during visits to Florida (the invasives capital of the continental U.S. - but here in NY we are doing our best to catch up and even now have Kudzu in places). Georgia is close to Florida so it seems possible.