Turf Pest of the Month: What superintendents need to know about identifying and controlling kyllinga

Kyllinga is a perennial weed and a persistent one at that, making it a recurring foe for golf course superintendents.

Kevin Laycock, director of category management at SiteOne Landscape Supply, shares what superintendents need to know about identifying and controlling this pesky weed.

Traditionally a warm-season turf pest, kyllinga thrives in poorly drained soils and doesn’t discriminate in terms of where it will pop up on your course.

“It could be anywhere,” Laycock says. “It’s more noticeable when you have higher cut turf, so you’re going to see it more on fairways and roughs than you do on greens.”

Combined with its ability to grow low to the ground, kyllinga’s multiple ways of spreading make it a pesky weed for golf course superintendents. (Photo: Peter Landschoot, Ph.D.)

Identification

While southern superintendents might be the most familiar with kyllinga, Laycock says that those in the northeastern areas of the country should start to keep an eye out for it as well.

“We’ve actually seen it spread to more northern markets,” he says. “It’s definitely spread more to the northeast and into cool-season turf. Even as it has grown in terms of its presence in those parts of the country, it is still very prevalent in warm-season areas as well.”

Identifying kyllinga shouldn’t be a major issue for a seasoned superintendent, even though it can resemble turfgrass or several types of sedges.

The biggest difference between sedges and kyllinga is that the latter grows low to the ground while sedges grow tall. Thanks to its low growing height, kyllinga can survive low heights of cut and still produce flowers, which allows it to spread.

Photo: Peter Landschoot, Ph.D.

Control

According to Laycock, the main goal of a control program should be limiting the number of tubers, which reduces the amount of kyllinga in their turf.

While a superintendent can manually remove the weed if they are present in limited numbers, chemical control is the preferred option because of the way kyllinga spreads — using both seeds and underground rhizomes. Hand-removing kyllinga infestations will require superintendents and their crews to keep a close eye on the area to make sure it doesn’t return.

Superintendents can also target kyllinga with several cultural control options, including promoting sufficient drainage, limiting irrigation and properly fertilizing.

Photo: Peter Landschoot, Ph.D.

Laycock recommends applying herbicides as early as your turf allows to achieve the best control. In cool-season turf, that could be in April or May, while in warm-season turf, it might be earlier in the year.

Products with the active ingredients sulfentrazone and imazosulfuron are atop Laycock’s list of kyllinga control options. In addition to offering control of kyllinga, several sulfentrazone products can provide residual control of yellow nutsedge.

Laycock also mentions PBI-Gordon’s Arkon herbicide liquid and its active ingredient, pyrimisulfan, as a new option available that directly targets both kyllinga, other sedges and more.

“A product like Dismiss NXT (from FMC) will start to work quicker than others. But ultimately, you’re going to get the same control after a month or so,” he says. “But what you see is a pretty quick visible result in the first seven days with a sulfentrazone product that you don’t get anywhere else. But that depends on what your preferences are, what your needs are and, obviously, the price points.”