Question
ah! good news (I think)! I've managed to pull several specimens from last year and after comparing to pictures of quack grass, I don't think it matches up. I lacks the "auricles", hairiness and some other subtle, hard to distinquish (for an amateur) characteristics. It looks like it may be tall fescue or ryegrass. It's still growing from a very invasive root system. I plucked it weekly last year from my herb garden, then installed plastic edging, which was a minor inconvenience to it - still growing.

So, rototilling may be acceptable after a surface kill (by blocking sunlight/tarps) of this weed? I will wait to confirm the id with healthy growing specimens this spring but am breathing easier now. Whew!

I was feeling poetic on Valentine's Day. Thought you might appreciate this: Love is a garden, good as the earth in which it grows,
Weeds, with tendrils seek, soil bereft of goodness,
Defilers, in nurturous keeps, face utter annilation,
Have you fertilized your garden today? (That's not meant to be read literally!)

Haha. My girlfriend finds me amusing. This is good.
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Hmmmmmm. ok. How does that quote go again, something like "Evil deeds from good intentions"

My first REAL step (I just learned this - I've been reading intensely) will be to do a proper soil test, to find out why the weeds are doing so well and everything else isn't. If there is a pH problem or mineral deficiency, I can fix that straight off. I also have recently read, as you mentioned, that ryegrass has an antagonistic effect on quackgrass, poisoning it with some natural chemical - same thing with sunflowers. But I'll need to get rid of the existing quack grass turf and thatch somehow first or the ryegrass will be dominated right off the guff (Yes it is actually a quack grass "lawn"). I read that quack grass is vunerable to close cropping during it's early life cycle, before it forms it's 3rd leaf. If it's mowed regularily (right to the soil perhaps) there is no energy payback to the root and the root becomes depleted and exhausted after so long. I hope so. If I can't dessicate or kill the root somehow, I'm in alot of trouble. I'm optimistic that with dillegent work, I can do it. Perhaps, I'll be waging war on it all this season until I'm sure I annilated it. Then I'll have to worry about keeping my soil healthy and adding organic content. And perhaps that day will come when I can plant a lawn.

It's still winter here and I have about a foot and half of snow cover. It's melting fast. I looked at the website and I'm pretty sure it is the dreaded quack grass. Don't worry. I'm not about to spray poison.

I'm looking into this also. I appreciate your help (and lost sleep). If I have any sudden breakthru's I'll keep you posted. Any advice you have would be most helpful.
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My good Gardener (from Long Island):

I wrote you a while back regarding soil improvement for a lawn. You've helped me to understand the idea of cover crops, which has shed some light unto a previously grim situation. I still have a few questions though. Perhaps you can help me understand.

I just read in another post that rototilling can damage soil structure and cause all the good wigglers to move into the neighbors yard. Can rototilling be implemented without this problem? I want to incorporate the crop into the 4-6 inch soil zone, which currently is a pile of dust and sand with a thick "lawn" of quack grass and weeds. Is it better to mow the crop upon maturity and rake it into the soil instead? Or is light rototilling acceptable? I'm afraid I will need to do some rototilling. I have to kill the quack grass problem and want to encourage good deep penetrating root growth in my future lawn. My plan is to use a progressive approach: Rototill and add sugar, compost the soil with moisture for a couple weeks, remove quack grass upstarts, then add the cover crop - harvest and repeat - perhaps 2-3 times each season.

The birds will love my lawn during this process. I have a grass grub problem and they find the fat, juicy larvae irrestistable. Often I see disputes over breakfast between the Robins. If I am devastating my earthworm population by walking this path, perhaps I can make ammends by sparing some unfortunate worms-in-captivity the fishhook by depleting gas station fish bait supplies over the next few years.

Thank you for your time. Any comments about my plans are most welcome.
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My good friend Paul, it is late here on Long Island and I was going to hold off on my answer here.  I will have to add to it later this week - short answer is Yes, Rototilling is BAD.  But it is NECESSARY to till in, given the amount of real estate if I remember correctly, the cover crop.  You don't have a postage stamp to deal with, you practically have your own Zipcode, so a practical but LIGHT Rototilling is the compromise I think you have to make.

But I don't remember anything about Quackgrass.  And that makes me very, very, very, very nervous, sir.

Quackgrass - "Elytrigia repens" and "Agropyron repens" to botanists - is aggressive, perennial, and ugly.  While it has one redeeming quality (farmers feed it to their horses to build a shiny coat), if you don't have horses, sir, there's no reason to grow Quackgrass.  And it sounds like you are telling me that Quackgrass has taken over your Zipcode.

Please take a quick look at the photos posted on the Michigan State IPM Program quackgrass page (http://www.ipm.msu.edu/CAT01_fld/FC04-12-01figQuackgrass.htm).  Does this look like your weed?

I hope not.

As I have said before, Quackgrass is a good excuse to use that S.A.T. word UBIQUITOUS.  Because it grows EVERYWHERE you don't want it.  Nothing is more ubiquitous than Quackgrass.

Which is why the State of Michigan has placed this weed on its official list of the 5 Most Common Weeds.  And why one of its nicknames is WITCHGRASS.

Quackgrass grows from wiry, underground rhizomes as strong as steel - but they look like harmless roots.  No matter what you do to them, THEY WILL NOT DIE.

Those rhizomes put Quackgrass in a class all by itself.  If you Rototill a plot where just ONE (1) Quackgrass plant is growing, you chop the rhizomes into pieces that grow roots all over the place.

After flowering, a mature Quackgrass specimen yields around 25 seeds.  Seeds can remain viable for up to 4 YEARS.

The organic Henry Doubleday Research Assn (HRDA) has posted some promising observations for managing this menace (http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/research/news/story.php?id=346).  One point they make: Crop Rotation might work.  "The first is a buckwheat-buckwheat-rye cover crop rotation.  The other combination is a thickly sown mixture of barley-oats-Canadian field peas.  This planting would be available for grazing, silage, or green manure."

I have not ruled out slash-and-burn as one possible answer to noxious weeds like this.  But I don't know if it will work, either.  Done wrong, and you burn up the soil and wreck it just as though you'd tilled for weeks.  And what good is that if dormant Quackgrass seeds and strings of Quackgrass rhizomes are still viable when the fire's been put out?  Anyway, I'm awaiting an answer on this - if there is one.  Solarization will kill microbes near the soil surface, but it will take the weeds with it - trouble is, it takes a full season so it is only useful when you're trying to steer someone away from RoundUp.

I am not a fan of pouring sugar into the soil to "feed" microbes.  You'll go much, much farther if you introduce microbes with Compost Tea.  But that's for another day.  After I get some sleep.

Bottom line: You cannot Rototill if you have Quackgrass.  If there is any possible way to identify it and pull it out by hand, which I hesitate to suggest because it is truly asking for the impossible, then you can Rototill - after wiping out all Quackgrass has Croaked.

I'll study this some more and continue later.  Good to hear from you again.
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I must tell you I am impressed with the serious work you have done and the information you -- hehehehe -- DUG UP!

Sorry, I could not resist.

This... ahem... is a new FIELD of Research so little is known thus far about chemical warfare between plant species.  The main reason for the late research is that there was no way until recently to measure trace levels of these complex chemicals.

I do believe you would make an excellent Reality TV Series of your own.  Working Feverishly to Find a way to Stop Quackgrass before it Takes Over the World.  A Race Against Time.  Kill, or be Killed.  This whole project is packed with suspense.

Bear in mind that NO ONE REALLY KNOWS how to wipe out Quackgrass.  They WANT to know.  The folks at Scotts and Ortho are working 'round the clock, not because they love Humanity but because, whether it's a Patented Chemical or a Secret Formula, the company that figures out the anti-Quackgrass version of Roundup will make a bundle on that stuff.  A BUNDLE!

But even if it works, who would want to use it?

Not me.

So what you are doing is cutting edge research.  Take some photos when the snow melts and you'll have the stuff of a great magazine story.  And I am NOT kidding on this!

Meanwhile, I await the word on scorched earth.

Question I have: Does Quackgrass grow under Black Walnuts and Butternuts?  Or do their Juglones (the chemical they secrete to eliminate most competition up to 80 feet from the Trunk) have ZERO effect on this EVIL WEED?

I'll be back in touch soon.

Answer
I sure do wish this was an annual weed you were dealing with, my poetic friend.  Quackgrass is not the only force of Evil in the grass.  Lucifer today takes many forms.  I think you really do have to hold off on the Roto before the verdict's in on what you're growing.

Keep in mind that most of the Coop Extensions are on the Old-Fashioned track when it comes to chemicals.  In 10 years, they will get with the program, but for them, right now, The Earth Is Flat.  They have the best of intentions.  Can't blame them for believing claims about how "safe" all those chemicals are with skulls and bones on the package.  Rototilling certain weeds will multiply your problem 10-fold.  A little patience is needed.

When you do get to the Roto part, try to hold back.  Remember the less-is-more approach - pretend you are one of those Earthworms, living the good life, along comes this huge piece of metal and turns your world upside down.  You'd wait before moving.  But do it again and you'd get out of town.  Those Earthworms are one of the keys to the lawn of your dreams.

Keep in touch.  This story is filled with suspense.  The cameras are rolling.