What is a herbicide?
Herbicides, also commonly known as weedkillers, are substances used to control unwanted plants. Selective herbicides control specific weed species, while leaving the desired crop relatively unharmed.

Herbicides can be divided into two categories:  pre-emergent and post-emergent.  Post-emergent herbicides are some of the most popular substances for weed control.  While post-emergent herbicides work on weeds that have already grown, pre-emergent herbicides work to prevent weeds from ever growing. 

Since hydroseeding most often involves creating a new lawn or a creating or repairing a section of lawn, at DIY Hydroseed, we combine our fertilizer with the herbicide Mesotrione during the mixing process and apply it to the soil within the slurry spray.  With this method, Mesotrione works as a pre-emergent herbicide and therefore the grass seed being applied to the prepared soil is protected from competing with the other plant seeds and pollen that are traveling through the air and being blown by the wind. 



(While some studies have found viable pollen that has traveled thousands of miles, research has shown that pollen that has traveled more than 10 miles from its source has decreased in density such that the risk of pollination is negligible at this range.  However, 10 miles is a substantial distance so hydroseeding without a herbicide in an urban area is still susceptible to having weeds grow and compete with the newly applied grass seeds.)

Care should be taken to not spray a lot of the hydroseed slurry containing the Mesotrione onto plants that you want to keep; our precision, fan shaped spray nozzle simplifies this task.  Directly spraying Mesotrione onto existing plants is how it works in its post-emergent capacity.  It does take a quantity of Mesotrione to hurt a grown plant so some accidental stray spraying isn't normally a problem.  If you have a concern with spraying a herbicide near some decorative plants, we offer a fertilizer mix that is herbicide free.

The following photos show some hydroseeding results done in a rural area.  The photos show growth at about 6 weeks and both the seed, fertilizer content, and soil used are the same; the only difference is that Mesotrione was added to the slurry mix.