Herbicide selection is an important step in effectively managing weeds throughout the landscape. Individuals caring for ornamental plants as well as warm- or cool-season turfgrasses can face unique challenges in selecting herbicides for weed control. Weeds that persist in ornamental areas are often different from those found in turfgrass stands.

Mobile Weed Manual: A New Resource for Turf and Ornamentals

Herbicide selection is an important step in effectively managing weeds throughout the landscape. Individuals caring for ornamental plants as well as warm- or cool-season turfgrasses can face unique challenges in selecting herbicides for weed control. Weeds that persist in ornamental areas are often different from those found in turfgrass stands. Additionally, desirable ornamental plants found throughout the landscape can be quite diverse and thus exhibit variable tolerance to herbicide applications. Lastly, many herbicide products labeled for use in turfgrass are not labeled for use in ornamentals and vice-versa. All of these factors make the process of herbicide selection in turf and ornamentals quite challenging.


What is Mobile Weed Manual?


The University of Tennessee Turf & Ornamental Weed Science Team has developed a new resource to help green industry professionals meet this challenge. Mobile Weed Manual is a new mobile website (www.mobileweedmanual.com) to assist practitioners selecting herbicides for use in both turfgrass and ornamental areas. The site contains weed control efficacy data and turfgrass and ornamental tolerance information for over 2,300 different species, as well as labels for nearly 100 different herbicides; all of which are optimized to be easily accessible from the palm of one’s hand.


How does Mobile Weed Manual work?


Mobile Weed Manual is a mobile website that will work on any mobile device (i.e., smartphone, tablet, etc.) regardless of manufacturer or operating system. The site will also function on a desktop or laptop computer; however, it was designed for use on devices with touchscreen capability.


Mobile Weed Manual offers users three means of selecting herbicides for weed control:


Search by Herbicide. This option is designed for individuals curious about what products are labeled for preemergence (PRE) or postemergence (POST) weed control in either turfgrass or ornamentals, regardless of species. How could this be useful? Select PRE herbicides for turf and the site will populate a list of all active ingredients labeled for PRE weed control in turf. Interested in POST weed control in ornamentals? This function will populate a list of all products labeled for such use.


Search by Desirable Species. This option is designed for individuals curious to know what herbicides are labeled for PRE and POST weed control in or around the specific turf/ornamental species that they manage. For example, this option would allow a lawn care professional to view a list of all the herbicides labeled for PRE weed control in tall fescue turf or determine products labeled for POST weed control in a species of Liriope. The opportunities are endless.


Search by Weed Species. This is the most powerful function of Mobile Weed Manual. This function allows user to select herbicides to control a specific weed growing in a particular species of turf or ornamental planting.


The steps are simple:


·         Select a use area (i.e., turf or ornamentals)


·         Select a type of application (i.e., PRE, POST)


·         Select the desirable species (i.e., the type of turf or ornamental planting in which weed control is needed)


·         Select the weed type


·         Select the specific weed to be controlled.


These steps serve as filters to narrow down the 100 different herbicides and 2300 different plant species to best fit the situation of interest. All of these filters must be completed for the site to function properly and provide correct herbicide recommendations. Users will be alerted in the event they omit required information.


The site will then populate a list of herbicides labeled to control the weed selected. Herbicides are color coded according to the level of control that can be expected by an application made according to label directions. These rankings are based on the results of research trials conducted at the University of Tennessee. It is important to note that it is impossible to research the efficacy of every herbicide for control of every weed that could possibly invade a landscape. Thus, herbicides coded gray are labeled for control of the weed selected but have not been evaluated in research trials at the University of Tennessee. Within each color code, herbicides appear in alphabetical order by trade name.


Users can select a particular product from the list to access additional information about how to best use this herbicide for weed management. Mobile Weed Manual will populate a page that provides users information on the full array of turf and ornamental species listed on the product label, suggested application rates, and remarks and precautions to adhere to before applying the product. Lastly, this page will contain links to each product’s label and material safety data sheet. It is always the herbicide applicator’s responsibility, by law, to read and follow all current label directions for the specific herbicide being used.


How to access Mobile Weed Manual


Simply visit www.mobileweedmanual.com using the internet browser on any mobile device. It is recommended that individuals bookmark the site and create a shortcut to it on their home screen. There are directions on the Mobile Weed Manual home page to guide users through this simple process. Creating a shortcut on the home screen will facilitate faster access to Mobile Weed Manual content in the future.


At the current time Mobile Weed Manual is a free resource. Should users find value in the content provided, they can donate funding (in an amount of their choosing) to support continued development of this new weed control resource. Donations can be made by selecting the “Support” button on the Mobile Weed Manual main page.


The University of Tennessee Turf & Ornamental Weed Science Team hopes that Mobile Weed Manual becomes a valuable tool for all green industry professionals managing weeds. The site will be updated continually to expand the database of turf, ornamental, and weed species information, as well as to include information on new herbicides entering the marketplace.


Since debuting online in May 2013, the site has been used by individuals managing turf and ornamentals in all 50 United States and 44 countries worldwide. Our hope is that Mobile Weed Manual use expands even further in the future.


Please send any questions, concerns, or comments on Mobile Weed Manual to info@mobileweedmanual.com. Also be sure to stay in touch with the University of Tennessee Turf & Ornamental Weed Science Team at http://tennesseeturfgrassweeds.org