We know that all plants (grass included) are susceptible to pests and diseases if the environmental pressures get high enough.
We also know that the more we can build up the plants overall health, the better it’s natural defences will be, and so the higher that “bar” of disease pressure can be before it has damaging affects.
Heathier plant = higher disease threshold before an outbreak is seen.
With products like Acelepryn against Leatherjackets, or Ascernity Vs Dollar spot we expect 90% + control.
We’ve become quite used to those kind of huge interventions in turf grass management.
But products where smaller gains are made can be less appealing.
Nematrident F solo for example consistently offers 50 – 70% control of Leatherjackets.
Compared to Acelepryn that doesn’t look great, but as part of an integrated program where we are looking to control pests in wider areas it makes for a powerful rotation partner.
The same notion is true for other products which each offer benefits in the plant health space.
In elite sport they often talk about “the 1%’s” = making those tiny improvements which add up make the difference.
I’m sure Rory McIlroy has been focused on his 1%’s recently.
The trials I’m running this year are based on work that my equivalent (but taller and stronger) Alex in the Nordics has been doing.
It was Alex’s dog on the front of the last blog I did on the Dry down.
In Sweden and Norway they have a closed season, then need to recover from winter damage (which can be significant, see below!) before being opened for play again.
They need to get that establishment and recovery as fast as possible once the snows recede in order to open to the deadline.
One of the greens coming out of winter 2023, huge project to get back to where they needed to be at a top venue:
Climate changing is biting hardest in the warmest and coldest places on earth.
Where they used to transition from cold winter snow cover to spring growing conditions nicely (and predictably).
Now they report wild temperature fluctuations leading to loss of snow cover early in the cold season leading to ‘winter kill’ when it turns cold again and the ground continues to freeze/thaw.
The snow cover insulates the turf zone from the harshness of the fluctuations.
It sounds counter intuitive that cold snow would protect the turf, but in this part of the world that is the reality.
The damage in the image above is from snow melt early, allowing a water saturated root zone to intensively freeze, that lift can sheer the roots from the top growth, killing the plant.
Back to the point, as the cause is not important.
They need to do all they can to get conditions back in the green.
The trial treats all the greens with the plant health program, and wooden boards are put down for the sprays, so the square you see is just the standard base fertility program, with the rest of the green showing the benefits of the program to move things forward.
All the trial sites in 2023 & 2024 that Alex worked with had positive results of the program, adding together those 5% gains from each application across the season.
This year I’m working with 3 golf clubs in the UK to look at the benefits this program can offer to plant health. I’m hoping to see more resilient turf, with better rooting but that’s all to be seen.
I’ll do another blog to outline the trial and keep you updated as we move through the season.
Hope everyone has a good Easter!
