 |
||||||||||||||
|
Wild Onion Woes
|
||||||||||||||
|
Taken from the B.Y.G.L. (Buckeye Yard and Garden Online) Newsletter
Contributing Authors: Pam Bennett, Joe Boggs, Cindy Meyer, Jim Chatfield, Erik Draper, Dave Dyke, Gary Gao, David Goerig, Tim Malinich, Becky McCann, Bridget Meiring, Amy Stone and Curtis Young |
||||||||||||||
|
Wild onion (Allium canadense) is a perennial weed in turf (as well as fields and landscapes) that is particularly tough to control. A relative of the garden onion (Allium cepa), the wild onion thrives in thin lawns and seemingly poor soils. Wild onion can be distinguished from wild garlic (Allium vineale) by the leaves, wild onion leaves are flat in cross section and wild garlic leaves are hollow.
The best control of wild onion (and many other weeds) is to foster a thick, healthy stand of turf. The turf shades out competition and any wild onion that survives will likely be unnoticed in a thick lawn. Individual clumps of wild onion can be dug from the lawn or garden. However, the bulbs are often deeper than one would imagine and digging up the bulbs in a large area becomes impractical. Herbicides listed for control of wild onion in turf usually contain one of two formulations of 2,4-D and are readily available in most garden centers. However, because of the waxy leaf-coating, onion leaves don't absorb herbicides easily, therefore the recommendation is to mow the tops off of the onion leaves before applying the herbicide. The concentrate Weed Free Zone with Carfentazone is the most selective herbicide to use for good control. |
||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||