I accidentally sprayed my yard with grass and weed killer. I buy the same brand of stuff that kills grass and weeds and stuff that kills weeds only. Same type of container and I got them mixed up. I immediately started spraying the lawn with the hose, then cut the grass shorter and raked contaminated clippings and I'm currently watering it.

That's about all you can do. Water enough to flush it through. Most non-selective herbicides say to turn off irrigation for 24 hrs, so by watering heavy right away the effects of the herbicide should be greatly reduced. A spray product will be absorbed into the leaf but watering can still help, especially if the weather isn't hot.

Home Depot has fake grass carpet on sale if it helps. I have it in my yard, I walk around the yard every once in a while and make vroom vroom sounds as I pretent to mow.:D
I also stand on the side of the yard and hold my hand out as I make a pssssssss sound.

As ssayre said, lots of water. Hope for the best.

This will be interesting. In my experience, weed killer never kills the weeds, so maybe it will work just as well on grass. Good luck.

Think you just freed up a whole lot more fly time yourself
Come do my house

We use Roundup here which is a salt (glyphosate) based kill everything herbicide. It says 'rainfast' in 4 hours so if you immediately hosed down the grass you've got a pretty good chance of not having done too much damage. If it still looks the same shade of green in a week, you're good to go.

Watch out for some of those selective herbicides - a lot of people around here use something called 'weed 'n feed' which is a broad-leaf herbicide - except they use it on calm warm days and the stuff becomes volatile or gas-like and floats up in the air till it finds a cooler pocket, then descends and starts defoliating trees. When I worked with a tree surgeon, we got several calls to look at completely defoliated trees in the middle of summer - first thing we'd notice is the beautiful lawn with nary a weed in site.....

Don't like your chances. The leaves would be up taking the spray immediately. The mowing was a great idea though to minimize chemical uptake. It's going to look real sick in a fortnight.

If it was a heavy application of glyphosate, then you may have more chance as the plant detects this and shuts down to protect its self. That's why it takes longer to see some results when you spray them with "I'll really kill them this time" rate of application. So the dilution may have made some effect.
The rain fast is only to cover the manufacturers bums. Light drizzle will have very little effect while spraying knock down chemicals. Just equals a higher water content per hectare. If the leaves are already to the point of rain runoff then yes fair enough. Heavy showers after 15 mins of application has had very little effect in my experience.
If I was to stop spraying knockdown, as each shower came over I would achieve very little farming on the south coast of Australia.

I'd say save up for some more lawn seed. That's my bet. Sorry.

Totally agree John, broad leaf herbicides are real bad. Being a oil based product, they don't evaporate quickly and an inversion or light wind, will carry them 10's of kilometers under the right conditions. I've seen emerging canola decimated in huge areas from this. Nil wind or very light winds are the dangerous ones to spay in due to drift. With a consistent wind at lease you know which direction the spray drift is NOT going and can plan around it.

Quote:

Heavy showers after 15 mins of application has had very little effect in my experience.

Probably not what Sean wants to hear. But will certainly give me a degree of joy when I see dark clouds building after I've just spent 3 hours slogging around the place with Kamba M !!!

Not my favorite job on my little sheep farm.

Quote: Originally posted by John Holgate

Quote: Heavy showers after 15 mins of application has had very little effect in my experience. Probably not what Sean wants to hear. But will certainly give me a degree of joy when I see dark clouds building after I've just spent 3 hours slogging around the place with Kamba M !!! Not my favorite job on my little sheep farm.

that's been my experience as well. The only thing that might save it is my mowing it immediately.

Quote: Originally posted by John Holgate

Quote: But will certainly give me a degree of joy when I see dark clouds building after I've just spent 3 hours slogging around the place with Kamba M !!! Not my favorite job on my little sheep farm. You chasing thistles/radish with your MCPA?

Some herbicides are only a defoliant. The grass depending on species can turn brown and new grass pop right back up. What kind of grass is it?

Quote: Originally posted by BeamerBob

Some herbicides are only a defoliant. The grass depending on species can turn brown and new grass pop right back up. What kind of grass is it?

Not sure, but I think a mix of kentucky blue grass and ryegrass is common for my area.

Quote: Originally posted by ssayre

Quote: Originally posted by BeamerBob   Some herbicides are only a defoliant. The grass depending on species can turn brown and new grass pop right back up. What kind of grass is it? Not sure, but I think a mix of kentucky blue grass and ryegrass is common for my area.

That's bad then. Maybe your countermeasures will help. The good news is that grass planting season will be about right for when the herbicide is gone.

Day 2 isn't looking too promising.

On the bright side, Abkayak is right, I won't have to worry about mowing the lawn before going kiting next weekend.

And those damned pesky weeds are finally dead.

I bet the weeds come back before the grass does.:evil:

Quote:

You chasing thistles/radish with your MCPA?

Thistles and capeweed.

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I bet the weeds come back before the grass does.:evil:

Me too!

Absolutely the weeds will come back before the grass in August. We have already been dry and hot for awhile.

I can tell the grass or the weeds didn't drink any of the water yesterday. no growth at all on anything. Amazing how fast and irreversible that stuff works.

It doesn't harm the soil and you are suppose to be able to replant in a week but I'll wait until September before I do anything.

I'm none too popular at the house at the moment.

It lived. It's back to 95%

If anyone makes this mistake, (probably won't) be sure and cut your grass short and rake the contaminated clippings. I'm fairly certain that's what saved mine.

That's good news Sean! Did any of the weeds die?

WOW!!!! I would have bet money that it was going to perish.

Great news though. WHEW.:D

Quote: Originally posted by Randy

That's good news Sean! Did any of the weeds die?

Nope, just as healthy as ever