Fungicide Programmes Tackle Turf Disease
A new Turfgrass Disease Management guide from Syngenta will give turf managers a better understanding of key turf diseases and more effective use of the fungicide programmes to achieve control on all quality sports turf. Syngenta Professional Products Technical Manager, Simon Barnaby, reports on the key issues.
Today’s turf managers are under ever increasing pressure to deliver high quality playing surfaces all year round. Every golfer wants to putt on Augusta quality greens; every footballer to play on a Premiership pitch. An outbreak of turf disease can ruin all the hard work put into preparing the best possible playing conditions for any sporting event. Their problems have been increased by more aggressive disease attacks, occurring throughout the season.
Furthermore, with climate change and extreme weather patterns, new diseases are breaking out that, until now, may never have been experienced on a site.
Disease identification, helped by the Syngenta Guide to Turf Disease poster and www.greencast.co.uk is essential to understand the disease threats, the tools available for their control and the best way to use them. Management practices essential to deliver the fine quality turf playing surfaces in demand can require a different approach to disease control. Integrated Turf Management (ITM) has an essential role in countering disease through effective nutrition, irrigation and maintenance, but in many practical situations can not eliminate problems.
Fungicide programmes remain a key component of turf disease control within an ITM regime. Effective use of fungicide programmes now will ensure high quality turf in the short term, as well as reducing disease pressure to enable the best use of ITM practices in the future for long term solutions.
Fungicide choice
Most turf managers will recognise from personal experience that not all fungicides are as effective as others. Just because a fungicide has a label approval for a specific disease, does not mean it will achieve total control. Some chemicals, such Banner MAXX, are inherently faster, more powerful and effective than others. Some may be effective against one pathogen, but far less robust against other diseases.
The natural origins of Heritage, as an inhibitor of a wide range of forest fungi, gives it a high level of activity on the widest range of key turf diseases. Other strobilurin fungicides are significantly weaker, which can leave turf unprotected from some key diseases. Product formulation can also make a significant difference in performance. Syngenta spends millions of pounds a year on research and development to ensure active ingredients and product formulation achieve the best performance in practice; trials have shown the same active could give 50 to 75% lower performance where it is incorrectly formulated.
Formulation differences can also have a significant effect on turf safety, with the Syngenta MAXX formulations especially developed to be gentle on plants and avoid unsightly damage or stress to the leaf.
Rotation, rotation, rotation
With disease pathogens constantly evolving there is the potential that they could develop the capability to resist the effects of some fungicide groups. However, turf managers can significantly reduce the risk of disease resistance developing by using programmes that rotate fungicides from different chemical groups – effectively stopping the build up of any disease pathogen with resistant genes.
Syngenta now has a full range of fungicides from different chemical groups and with different modes of action, to control all major turf disease pathogens throughout the season, and into the future.