I have not grown k31 so don't have any first hand experience. The research suggests the newer varieties of tall fescue not only look better but also have other qualities like increased drought resistance. k31 is always used in the NTEP trials and consistently scores the lowest on most trials. However, I understand your point and some people (like me) wonder if the newer varieties are more susceptible to things like gray leaf spot which they historically did not test for.

You might want to look at the tall fescue trials at ntep.org and see what you think. I wouldn't say it's bad to go with K31 just that I wouldn't personally do it.

Also, I'm not sure K31 would be any more or less prone to poa contamination. I think that's more a function of the seed grower/ producer.

 

K31 for me grew well enough here SE MA zone 6b but its a very heavy blade and my wife hated it.
I have been running lesco All teams Pro Select past few over seedings and its doing well and I think its all but taken over most of the K31
I have Triv and poa I believe came in from a "shade" blend and or one of those "quick patch" grasses.
Now that I can ID Triv and POA I see it EVERY WHERE around me so im sure seeds come in also from outside sources.
The label should tell you some info .
I think they can have up to 5% of weed or "other" grasses before they need to tell you what it "other" is.

 

It took me a couple of years to figure out my problem. Like a lot of people, I thought it was brown patch and threw a couple hundred dollars in fungicide at it.

I guess what really has me pissed off is tons of people have this issue and the seed companies are not held accountable.

I am getting older, and I don't need to have to worry about major renovations because of seed company's mistakes, especially when I pay top dollar for seed. Poa annua.. I have a defense, but Triv I do not, except for glyphosphate.

 

It took me a couple of years to figure out my problem. Like a lot of people, I thought it was brown patch and threw a couple hundred dollars in fungicide at it.

I guess what really has me pissed off is tons of people have this issue and the seed companies are not held accountable.

I am getting older, and I don't need to have to worry about major renovations because of seed company's mistakes, especially when I pay top dollar for seed. Poa annua.. I have a defense, but Triv I do not, except for glyphosphate.

I feel your pain at my age do I really feel like digging out a 20by30 foot area filled with triv stolons when I paid top dollar for blue tagged seed. On top of spending money battling what I thought it was a fungus. I'm looking for a easy out but I don't think it exists sadly. On top of then I'll need to order top soil and hump it to the area I just dug out and who knows what bad weed seeds are lurking in it.

 

It's easy to blame the seed companies. It's not always them. Plenty of other ways to get trivialis in your lawn.

 

It's easy to blame the seed companies. It's not always them. Plenty of other ways to get trivialis in your lawn.

I agree it's not always the them but most likely them

 

Does anyone have experience with these two TTTF blends?

https://unitedseeds.com/product/4th-millennium-tall-fescue/

https://hancockseed.com/collections/fescue-lawn-grass-seed/products/hancocks-turf-type-tall-fescue

 

Does anyone have experience with these two TTTF blends?

https://unitedseeds.com/product/4th-millennium-tall-fescue/

https://hancockseed.com/collections/fescue-lawn-grass-seed/products/hancocks-turf-type-tall-fescue

I used united seed super turf 1 LS tall fescue blend extremely happy with it. It was blue tag and all highly rated blend of 4 different seeds. I like a blend more then a single fescue seed. I heard snap back is nice also.

 

Do you have a photo of the tag on the seed you bought? Truth is you can buy 0.00% weed/other crop and still have a chance to end up with some triv. It can come from anywhere, I'd be hard pressed to blame seed company unless this was the result within 1st year of a start from scratch reno.

KY31 is pretty coarse looking, and isn't poa-proof anymore than anything else, you would be able to tell the difference.

Good luck, I feel your pain. Poa triv is really nasty stuff, I have it too

 

If the appearance of Poa triv bothers you (i.e. you care about a nice looking lawn) and you're going through the effort of a reno then I'm not sure you'd be happy with the look of K31. It has wider blades, it's more coarse to walk on, and it's nowhere near as dark green genetically as the better TTTFs. Main advantages of K31 are that it's dirt cheap, and relatively hardy. However IMO the cost difference is negligible in relation to the amount of work that goes into a partial/full reno, and K31 still isn't fungus-proof. It will get some leaf spot and dollar spot. I don't think it suffers too bad from brown patch but don't remember exactly. I have a small patch of K31 that I haven't glypo'ed yet, but my fungicide game has been pretty good the past few years, so the nicer cultivars stay pretty healthy and look way better than the K31.

4th Millennium is a good cultivar. If you search the forum you should be able to find pics from a couple of members who have monostands of it, though I lean towards blends myself. Can't tell what's in the Hancock blend, looks like you have to email them to get a pic/description of the current label.

 

@OBXWNC I agree with ScottW and can vouch for 4th Millennium, but one needs to recognize there is no perfect cultivar out there. From a marketing perspective, it touts the following benefits: "self repair, performance in shade, drought-tolerant, traffic wear resistance, and brown patch resistance".

If you're interested in photos as Scott suggests, I have a monostand of it in a portion of my yard. You can see its condition/quality a year after seeding at this specific page in my journal, last post on the page, halfway through the post.
https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=17536&start=40

The rest of my yard has 4th Millennium also but as part of a mix. Happy to answer any questions you may have about my experience with it. That monostand was 0.00% weed/other crop blue tag, but I still have a very small amount of triv in that area. But, to reinforce the original point, it's because triv is very difficult to 100% eradicate-- it was already there, it wasn't because the seed company screwed up.