Last fall, using my tow-behind broadcast sprayer i sprayed round-up around different areas of my acreage and went to spray fall weed herbicide on my yard. i had ran out of the round-up and didn't really think to flush it out, thought whatever was left would be diluted enough to make no difference, well it did. Nuked a good chunk of my yard (more that whats in the attached photo). The question is the obvious, whats a guy do to fix it? It was sort of filling back in on its own by the end of the season because before you could see exactly where the spray went back and forth. I kind of hate to wait for it to fill in on its own because the crab grass was quickly trying to take over those spots.
Thanks.

 

I don't know a lot about grass but it's clear that sod wouldn't be cost effective due to the size of the yard. My question would be does the damage done to the soil make a quick recovery almost impossible without adding top soil? Wait for some of the country guys to answer. They will certainly know more than I know.

 

Lightly till, sow grass seed, and mulch with straw to hold moisture while the seeds germinate. Water thoroughly after adding the straw and keep the soil moist. You should see grass begin to grow in about 2 weeks.

 

What have you applied to the area? When did you apply it? At what rate did you apply it? And no, "fall herbicide" does not answer my question. The glyphosate is not a problem now but I'm wondering what else you put down.

I'm doubting you did all the killing. Your photo looks like normal crabgrass dieback in winter.

 

I can't find the bottle, probably used it all, but I'm pretty sure it was amine 2-4d, it wasn't amine 400 (I have a bottle of that), it was in a more genaric looking jug I got from the coop. But none the less 2-4d. I do my fall application in the first half of October here in Iowa. What's in that photo is lawn grass, i took that photo this weekend, I should have took a picture last year...

 

I think Wirepuller gave you the right instructions but make sure the daily temperatures are in the 60s consistently first or the seed won't germinate. Spring is not the ideal time to grow cool season grasses so be prepared to overseed this fall as well.

 

Oh also to add, that area was pretty clear of crabgrass before this. Further back in the yard where the crabgrass was, the herbicide killed everything but the crabgrass came right back.

 

In your photo it looks like I can see some runners in the big dead area that appear to be crabgrass. 2-4-d does not kill crabgrass so your spraying had no affect on it. Crabgrass dies back in winter and reseeds itself to emerge next season (it's an annual). Now you are at a tough decision point. Most crabgrass preventers should be down now. But most create a barrier over the soil that prevents germination of the crabgrass and other weed seeds. This has the negative of also stopping other grass seeds from germinating.

If you are patient and can ignore the dead areas I'd apply a pre-emergent crabgrass preventer now. Then in late summer I would lightly till or heavily rake the area and plant grass. By late summer the pre-emergent will have deactivated and will allow your good grass seed to germinate.

If you want to do something now follow Wirepullers advice and plant grass now. You will probably have crabgrass come up as well but at least you will have something green. Then in the late summer I would do rake the area and overseed with grass. Then late next winter or very early spring I would apply a pre-emergent to control crabgrass.