You remove KY-31 by either mechanical process or spray glyphosate multiple times for total kill.

KY-31 "can" be a nice lawn in certain situations with work but you'll probably want turf (TTTF or KBG) grass instead of the forage coarse blade KY-31.

 

K31 is a little lighter and wider bladed than the newer TTTF. I have lots and lots of it in my pastures, it's not bad. And, the big thing, and the reason people still plant it, it's bulletproof once established. Yes, I'm aware that there are trials showing that K31 is outperformed in durability/drought tolerance by newer variants, I don't believe it. It's tough as nails, I run a 15,000 lb tractor with ag tires over it all the time, skid steer, excavators, whatever, it's not gonna hurt K31 that badly.

If you want to redo it, I'd wait until you think most of it has sprouted and then nuke it with Roundup. Give it a week, then nuke again anything that's green, then go and reseed. You're watering an acre of land; so I assume you're looking for a top tier lawn; in that case, nuke will be your option. K31 will look amazing if maintained well to most people's eye, but, if you want to impress a real lawn nut, yeah, you're going to have to go with a higher end grass. K31 is not as pretty as the newest stuff, not as dark green and the blades are quite a bit wider.

 

If you really want a nice looking yard, most people arent happy with K31. If I were you id let as much of your k31 seed germinate as possible and kill it in the fall. That gives you enough time to research/source some higher quality seed and reduce the amount of ungerminated k31 seed that may have popped up during your reno

 

The main reason we went for this seed to begin with, was because that's what we threw down at my old place before we sold it. All we did was till it, clean it up, and seed/fertilize it. To our very untrained eyes it looked pretty good.

@Overtaxed You're absolutely right, though. We put a lot of time/effort/money into this and something as simple as junk seed takes it all away. I feel like an idiot. Here is some pics of the lawn at the old house though. Honestly, it's not terrible. A nice KBG lawn would beat the pants off of it though.

The first two pics seem awfully dark for K31. I don't remember when those were taken, lawn may not have fully matured quite yet at that point.

 

Just out of curiosity, what is your irrigation pulling from? (a well, on site lake, city water?) 57,000 sqft is a lot of space to cover.

And, as has been mentioned, it's all about your goals. If you keep it watered, fertilized, and cut right, could a K31 yard look good to the average person? Sure.
And honestly, at this point it might even be worth rolling with what you already have planted, get all your watering, feeding and mowing practices down, and see how good you can get it to look for a season. You might end up with something you're completely satisfied with. Or you can just go the full reno route next year, but you'll already have all your lawn's cultural practices down pat.

 

Just out of curiosity, what is your irrigation pulling from? (a well, on site lake, city water?) 57,000 sqft is a lot of space to cover.

And, as has been mentioned, it's all about your goals. If you keep it watered, fertilized, and cut right, could a K31 yard look good to the average person? Sure.
And honestly, at this point it might even be worth rolling with what you already have planted, get all your watering, feeding and mowing practices down, and see how good you can get it to look for a season. You might end up with something you're completely satisfied with. Or you can just go the full reno route next year, but you'll already have all your lawn's cultural practices down pat.

We have a well. Yes it is a lot of water. I have 14 zones, each zone is 20 GPM. We have an absurd amount of groundwater here so it's no issue.

I think you make great points. I'm new to this so I'm sure I'll screw up a fertilizing or weed killing at some point. I'm leaning towards keeping what I have, and just overseeding with a good TTTF from here on out. I'm bummed about it, but maybe I can surprise some people with a nice looking K31 lawn.

 

How quick does K-31 Germinate in comparison to PRG? Could you drop PRG right now at some absurdly high rate in hopes that it germinates quicker and chokes out the K-31?

 

What about laying down some pre-M and living with dirt until the fall?

 

You can let it grow now for a month or so and then kill it with round up in mid July to drop good seeds early august.

 

I'm leaning towards keeping what I have, and just overseeding with a good TTTF from here on out. I'm bummed about it, but maybe I can surprise some people with a nice looking K31 lawn.

I'd either roll with just the K31, or follow other posters' suggestions for how to go about a reno. Mixing what you have with newer tttf cultivars is going to magnify differences in color and leaf texture. That's a good recipe to end up with a patchy lawn you hate.

 

How quick does K-31 Germinate in comparison to PRG? Could you drop PRG right now at some absurdly high rate in hopes that it germinates quicker and chokes out the K-31?

The only thing I've found that can outcompete K31 is crabgrass.

 

I would say try the K31. It's down and you're going to have to kill it to change it over anyway; why not give it a shot first.

I live in an area of farms and larger lot sizes (multiple acres). From my own observations and trials of trying to grow a high quality turf on > 1 acre, my conclusion is that K31 might be a better choice for a larger lot size. Yes, it's a lighter green color, but once it grows in and thickens up, it seems to look most even when cut and show less issues with disease, insects, etc. than anything else. There is a local farmer who has it planted about 12' between the roadway and his crops, he cuts it once a week with a quality mower, and it looks 10X better than my yard. It never seems to burn out either.

 

If you do eventually kill it, maybe leave a small section of it in some corner to compare with your new grass cultivars. Test plots rock. It's interesting to compare color; drought, heat and disease resistance; low vs high maintenance results; spring green up, etc. if you're into that sort of thing. You can always kill it later on.

 

K31 is a little lighter and wider bladed than the newer TTTF. I have lots and lots of it in my pastures, it's not bad. And, the big thing, and the reason people still plant it, it's bulletproof once established. Yes, I'm aware that there are trials showing that K31 is outperformed in durability/drought tolerance by newer variants, I don't believe it. It's tough as nails, I run a 15,000 lb tractor with ag tires over it all the time, skid steer, excavators, whatever, it's not gonna hurt K31 that badly.

If you want to redo it, I'd wait until you think most of it has sprouted and then nuke it with Roundup. Give it a week, then nuke again anything that's green, then go and reseed. You're watering an acre of land; so I assume you're looking for a top tier lawn; in that case, nuke will be your option. K31 will look amazing if maintained well to most people's eye, but, if you want to impress a real lawn nut, yeah, you're going to have to go with a higher end grass. K31 is not as pretty as the newest stuff, not as dark green and the blades are quite a bit wider.

I agree. My experience with it has been the same. It is 'tough as nails' and the fully established / mature plants outperform any of the 'elite' cultivars in heat / drought / disease tolerance - I don't care what NTEP says, I'm going with real life experience.

My only hesitation for using it as a primary turf variety is it is virtually impossible to find a weed free / noxious weed free bag of the stuff. If you look at what tractor supply / DFL / etc sell, it's loaded to the gills with weed seed. If I could find a blue tag equivalent with 0% weed / 0% noxious seed, I think I'd consider it.

One parting thought... I've got a neighbor with a Meyer Z-52 Zoysia lawn. That particular lawn has been established since the late 80s. The meyer, as expected, took over all pre-existing grasses, however, it's been unable to penetrate the clumps of K-31 tall fescue which were present in the yard. I think it's a sign of how strong the grass is once it is established, that even an insanely thick, established Meyer Zoysia could not overtake it. That type of hardiness doesn't exist in any of the elite cultivars.

 

My only hesitation for using it as a primary turf variety is it is virtually impossible to find a weed free / noxious weed free bag of the stuff. If you look at what tractor supply / DFL / etc sell, it's loaded to the gills with weed seed. If I could find a blue tag equivalent with 0% weed / 0% noxious seed, I think I'd consider it.

Your right, forage grass seed bags are not weed free. I've found that the DLF Pickseed green bag coated KY-31 usually has a lot less weed seeds than the white bag non-coated. I check the bags every so often throughout the year and buy when there's a decent low weed % available with no noxious or poa annua, etc. The worst contaminate I noticed that came up was annual ryegrass, I just mowed those over and not let them go to seed to spread - they add OM when they die.

 

Thanks everyone! We decided to just let it grow and see how it looks before we decide. It's coming in but lots of thin spots and ferns growing. This area was all woods a year ago so we expected some junk to grow back. Couple more weeks and we should be able to mow it!

 

There is weed free KY-31 seed for landscapers sometimes, but it's tough to find.