cellulose and lignin that turn thatch into humus, organic acids and release the locked up nutrients as plant food.
Soil Biology Saves Money
Once the thatch starts to degrade your fertiliser, fungicide, irrigation and wetting agent inputs will start to reduce, because water percolates faster and plant food is released into the rootzone for strong growth.
Reduced fertiliser
Accurate figures for the nutrient content of thatch are hard to obtain because of the different density, percentage of topdressing and fertiliser applied. Thatch contains NPK and trace elements. If you have 3cm of thatch covering a hectare of greens you have 300m3
of dead organic
matter diluted with topdressing. If just half of this layer is degraded it is the equivalent of applying many tonnes of green waste.
Thatch contains at least 3gms/kg of
nitrogen The average golf green produces between 5-10 tonnes of thatch per hectare per year. If this is degraded instead of removed you recycle up to 30kg of nitrogen in slow release organic form each year.
Disease management
Converting thatch to plant food creates a free draining nutritious, environment that grows stronger, more disease resistant grass. Two other disease defence mechanisms can also be brought into the turf manager’s armoury. Thatch is the source of nutrient for many fungal diseases, especially fusarium. If you colonise the thatch layer with beneficial fungi and bacteria, they will form a protective barrier around the roots to stop pathogens infecting the plant and out compete pathogenic disease causing fungi for nutrient.
Goodbye fairy rings and fungal dry patch
Thatch feeds basidiomycetes, the soil fungi that create fairy rings. These fungi
degrade the thatch, releasing nitrogen which creates the green ring that expands as the fungi grow. They also release hydrophobic proteins that coat soil particles, creating the white, mushroomy smelling soil that is bone dry in summer. You do not need to see the green ring to suffer from fungal dry patch. Competitive exclusion of the basidiomycetes by beneficial thatch degrading fungi will reduce the nutrient available so that the green rings and dry patch will reduce or even disappear.
Promote fine grasses
Practically every turf manager that breaks down thatch biologically and increases fungal dominance in the rootzone reports an increase in the fine grasses. The increase may come from over seeding or ingress of indigenous species, especially rye, fescue or agrostis in the sward. This is because fine grasses need a good balance between fungi and bacteria in the soil to thrive, while poa annua and early successional grasses and weeds need bacterial dominant soils. As the introduced fungi degrade thatch they produce the organic acids they need for their own survival, thus ensuring continued conditions for fine grass and low thatch swards. In summary, physical disruption costs money while natural processes create a low thatch, low disturbance environment for healthy fine grass growth. Regular hollow coring is not necessary unless the drainage is so poor that the tine holes themselves create the drainage system.
What you can save per year using thatch as food for soil biology
• 30-60 tonnes topdressing • 2-3 fungicide applications • 50kg nitrogen plus K and P
• The cost of hollow tines and blade damage
• Reduced irrigation • No down time for green fees Email:
martin@symbio.co.uk
Case Study 1 Marriott Forest of Arden
Robert Rowson, Golf and Estates Manager, Marriott Forest of Arden
The Arden course at the Forest of Arden has hosted the British Masters and gets constant use for corporate golf, with green fees at upwards of £100 per round, so the playing surface must be excellent all year. The construction is a mix topdressing over soil that does not naturally drain well and USGA specification greens. Rob has worked to improve the soil biology for three years and incorporates Symbio ThatchEater and Compost Teas into his management programme. The thatch degrades and feeds the microbes added in the compost tea. The soil is now friable, open, draining and full of life. On the surface fairy rings and fungal dry patch have disappeared. Living soil allows Rob to core with smaller tines, scarify less and apply less topdressing, fertiliser and, importantly for revenue, spend less time physically managing the surface. “Biological breakdown of thatch with Symbio ThatchEater and Fungal Compost Tea has improved the performance of our putting surfaces. It has also enabled me to minimise disruptive and labour intensive practices for physical thatch removal.”
Case study 2 Parc Golf Club Newport Gwent Les Pearce, Head Greenkeeper
ROLLER MOWERS Model TDR-15 and TDR-22 4.7m and 6.7m cutting widths
SDR MOWERS 3 point linkage unit 1.6m and 2.4m widths
sales@trilo.co.uk
The Parc is a members club with a lot of green fee golf. When the USGA specification greens were chemically managed thatch built up to 5 cm in depth. Disease, especially fusarium, was rife and some of the greens could not sustain 100% grass cover. Carl Hicks and Les Pearce started to degrade thatch biologically in 2003, and immediately fertiliser inputs dropped by over 100kg N per year. Thatch is now less than 1cm. Disease is much reduced and fungicide applications have reduced from 5 to 2 by per year and the sward is now dominated by agrostis. Aeration is mostly by sorrel roller, Carl no longer hollow cores, saving up to 60 tonnes of topdressing per year. The savings in fungicide, topdressing, fertiliser and wetting agent more than pays for the cost of improving soil biology. “Before we used Symbio, our parkland greens were very poor in all aspects. After five years using their ‘sustainable approach’ for quality turf, the greens are continuously in very good condition despite the huge amount of rounds played. We now have bent dominated swards that are improving rapidly all the time.”
57
NEW NEW
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132