As we reach the end of another football season the onslaught of renovations is upon the groundsman of the UK.
I've written recently (blog here....) about the unusual disease challenges that have faced golf course managers this month and whether to ride it out or reach for a fungicide application? For golf course managers they have the option to delay and weigh up the options and whilst it may not feel like it, weather and time is almost on their side "normally" in the late Spring.
The groundsmen of the UK have a different challenge at this time of year where time really isn't with them.
I did a presentation recently looking at how to help groundsmen get the best establishment posible. Prior to the presentation we asked them "How long from seeding to first fixture?". I was amazed at the response around 7% of those surveyed had only 3 weeks to strip and renovate a pitch! Although that was the extreme, even the 60% average of 7 weeks was pretty crazy.
When those pitches are first used, they are in the spotlight too, so anything that can be done to mitigate the risk should be considered.
Knowing the extremes of this situation and knowing how the weather is misbehaving this year, ensuring you have a thorough fungicide programme in place is critical to success and that's why we packaged up the FR321 one box solution. The powerful combination of the systemic Heritage and the spore knock down capability of Medallion is a powerful combination, add in the ryder to reduce any light stress that may go on in those intense environments and you can see why we put it together. Here's a blog looking at some of the trial data.....
As surprising as the speed of turnaround was for me the above bit of data was the one that blew me away - 8% of groundsman are running sprayers over turf in week 1 after seeding and over 90% are running sprayers over in week 2 and 3! Just goes to show that necessity is the mother of invention.
Good luck with the renovation guys, fingers crossed the weather stays with you.
