nitially, the idea came from a magazine. A story in Grounds Maintenance set Wayne Farra's mental gears into mortion Farra, founder and president of Hammerstone Lawn Care, Inc., in Lillington, N.C., saw an article on a broadleaf weed pre-emergent that was being used in Georgia as part of a premium lawn care program.     As a lawn care trendsetter in North Carolina's growing Triangle area, Farrar found the concept of preventing broadleaf weeds intriguing. Maybe this would catch on like the time he started using a three-seed fescue blend when his many competitors used a single-seed variety - and everyone switched to his blend. Or maybe it was the perfect, sustainable competitive advantage for his service-oriented company in this burgeoning, upscale area, recently ranked as one of the top places to live in the U.S.     So last year, after Thanksgiving and before mid-January, he applied Gallery pre-emergence broadleaf herbicide to all of his customers' cool-season fescue lawns. The objective: to test its effectiveness for Hammerston'e 2,500 largely residential accounts before formally introducing it into the company's program.     "In our lawn maintenance business, one of our biggest callenges was to develop a program where we didn't have to go back and do a lot of retreatment to our customers' lawns," Farrar says. "Basically, we wanted to put a product out there that would stop the germination of many winter annual broadleaf weeds which germinate in our area late January thourgh early March. This control would lessen our need for post-emergent broadleaf treatments later in the spring." Gallery contains isoxaben, a relatively new chemistry that controls more that 95 broadleaf weeds, including Farrar's primary challenges: chickweed, dandelions, henbit, and plantain. Low in water solubility, it binds tightly to soil particles to resist leaching and remain in the week germination zone, where it stops tough-to-control broadleaf weeds before they start.     Farrar's crews appled a tank miz of Gallery to control weeds that greminate during the mild Southern winter and a post-emergent for weeds that had already come up. Gallery can be used in the spring for summer-germinating weeds as well, and applications should be timd for problem weeds germinate. This, of course, varies by climate and weed season (ceck label).     "In the South, we have a lot of winter annuals germinate in late January, early February," Farrar explains. "I felt that it would be easier to prevent them that it would be to come back and clean them up, because many times it's hard to eliminate them with just one application."     Indeed, the treatment controlled about 98 percent of the weed problem, preventing most call backs. Even more importantly, it kept customers happy, according to Farrar. "We're seeing a lot of customers who want a perfect lawn - not just what everybody else has," he explains. "They want a higher level of service.     "Our phone did not ring nearly as much with complaints of weed problems later in the spring," Farrar says. He says the applications, though initially more expensive than a post-emergent alone, paid for themselves in season-long labor savings. "Because Gallery helps us deliver a better quality service, it gave everyone working here a little more positive attitude about our work."     It's a service level Farrar plans to incorporate into his program next season. "Pre-emergent broadleaf weed control is going to be one of our strong selling points in our promotions, especially new sales," he says.     "We're just trying to bring the level of lawn care in our market up a notch," Farrar adds. "We want to give people something they can't get just anywhere."