College of Agriculture & Natural Resources

• Giant Foxtail

  Giant foxtail is a larger plant than green or yellow foxtail. Giant foxtail will not tolerate mowing and is rarely found in mowed turf areas. It is most commonly a weed of cultivated crops.

• Wild Violet

  Wild violet is a low-growing clumping (simple) perennial with a dense, fibrous root system and heart-shaped leaves that often cup toward the petiole to form a funnel shape. Wild violet is often considered difficult-to-control due to its aggressive growth, waxy leaves and resistance to most common herbicides.

• Purple Deadnettle

  Purple deadnettle is a common weed invader of vacant agricultural fields, landscape borders, derelict lawns, and compost piles.

• Melting Out

  Symptoms of melting-out resemble leaf spot symptoms and these two diseases are often grouped together. Melting out however is a cool-weather disease where leaf spot is a warm-weather disease.

• Yellow Hawkweed

  Yellow hawkweed is a creeping perennial of low maintenance turf, roadsides and native areas. It can be an indicator of low soil fertility or slightly acidic soils. Hawkweed spreads by stolons and rhizomes creating colonies that form patches.

• Perennial Sowthistle

  Perennial sowthistle is common in roadside and low maintenance turf and somewhat less common in landscapes. It prefers slightly alkaline or neutral soils, fine-textured, rich soils. Perennial sowthistle will not thrive on coarse sandy soils.

• Buckhorn Plantain

  Buckhorn plantain is a narrow-leaved perennial that forms a rosette. The 3-10 inch long leaves are less than 1 inch wide and arise from a thick, shallow tap root. Buckhorn plantain is very common in maintained turf but will also survive in meadows and waste areas.

• Foliar Anthracnose

  Anthracnose can occur as both a foliar infecting and crown infecting disease.

• Creeping Woodsorrel

  Creeping woodsorrel is a spreading perennial weed with a reddish-purple color that frequently roots at the nodes.

• Green Foxtail

  Green foxtail is a clumping annual grass that commonly invades Michigan turfs. Young plants can be difficult to distinguish from other grasses like crabgrass. Green foxtail produces a characteristic 'foxtail'-like seedhead.

• Waitea Patch

  Waitea patch is an emerging problem on annual bluegrass in Michigan. Symptoms typically begin as thin yellow rings, ranging from a few inches to a 1 ft (10 cm to 0.3 m).

• Common Lambsquarters

  Like many other summer annual broadleaf weeds, common lambsquarters is generally considered an 'establishment weed.' Common lambsquarters needs cultivation (bare, loose soil) to establish.

• Shepherd's Purse

  Shepherd's purse is a winter annual with a basal rosette of lobed leaves and a long flowering stalk. Leaves become more deeply lobed as they mature. Due to extremely long-lived seeds and an affinity for disturbed soil, it is most often a weed of new seedings established between mid-August and the end of September.

• Silvery Thread Moss

  Silvery thread moss is the most common species found in turfgrass, usually appearing on putting greens and in shaded back yards.

• Bacterial Wilt

  Bacterial wilt is characterized by tiny red-copper-colored spots first appearing about the size of a dime. As more plants die, spots become larger. Small, yellow leaf spots, streaked tan to dark brown spots, dark green, water soaked lesions, shriveled blue to dark green leaves, and yellow elongated leaves are all symptoms that have been associated with bacterial wilt.

• Birdsfoot Trefoil

  Birdsfoot trefoil is a common perennial broadleaf plant in under-fertilized, minimal maintenance turfgrass sites. It is well distributed across Michigan and the Great Lakes Region.

• Leaf Spot

  Leaf spot is a warm-weather disease, but the pathogen overwinters as dormant mycelium in infected plants and dead grass debris.

• Carolina Geranium

  Carolina geranium is an uncommon weed of low or no-maintenance areas such as fence rows. The leaf shape is very similar to common mallow, except that the leaves are more finely dissected. Pink, inconspicuous flowers are produced within the canopy. Plants typically do not persist after flowering.

• Poison Ivy

  Poison ivy is a trailing or climbing vine common to woodlots, naturalized areas, and property boundaries.

• Nimblewill

  Nimblewill is a warm-season turfgrass that will infest cool-season turf. It has excellent winter hardiness which allows it to establish and compete.