improvements through particle flocculation by the microbes (I have witnessed the latter at The RAC club’s Woodcote Park where Bob Wiles has been using compost teas for over five years). The key to achieving these objectives is to evolve a microbial enhanced rootzone, which utilises the nutrients locked up in any organic thatch layer as food for plant growth, not for fungal pathogens.
To bodly go where no researcher has gone before
I believe that it will take a very long time before the research catches up with the practical world on this one. Someone has said that the life in our soils is far more complex and diverse than the universe outside of it. As we are nowhere near understanding the universe I would get on with practical application. Apply compost teas and see the beneficial anecdotal results quicker than waiting for research results. Although there is still much to learn on this subject, it is undeniably clear that a healthy balanced life in the soil is the key element of the plant/soil association. In modern terminology it has been described as the connective interface, the lubricant, stimulant and antibiotic of plant life.
It is fact that introducing competition for fungal pathogens, and reduction in available food source via thatch digestion, leads to healthy, more consistent and less disease affected turf. Most fungal related turf problems
are caused by a single factor, namely adverse environmental conditions. For example, soil compaction, high moisture levels (above and below ground), consistent warm
There is little point in adding soil conditioners such as seaweed as food for micro-organisms if you have none to start with!
Kevin Munt, KMgc Consultancy
temperatures and traffic/machine damage, all of which result in plant stress.
What many turf managers don’t factor into this equation is that the life below ground is also stressed out by these factors, or just plain dead because of them!
Most turf pathogens are just opportunists that are able to capitalise on a situation that is tipped in their favour. They pick on the weak and stressed because they are able to. Under the adverse environmental conditions that we maintain golf greens, the fungi that would naturally eat or control these causal pathogens are missing from the food chain.
In simplistic terms, a healthy soil equals a healthy plant. I am not talking just about the physical composition of the soil (rootzone), I am talking about the life that is supported in that soil. An active soil biomass, full of equal quantities of fungi and bacteria, will ensure a ‘below ground’ food chain that will provide the plant with the natural growing environment it requires. An environment that does not need excessive additional nutrient or irrigation for the desirable grasses to thrive.
Beam them down Scotty
Therefore, in summary, I believe that a regular quality compost tea
programme, in the right hands, will further tip the balance in favour of the
desired finer grasses. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it should form the backbone of any greens management programme geared towards reduced chemical inputs and species conversion to bent/fescue swards. If you want, or do, manage in this way, why wouldn’t you want to get this type of help below ground? I like to think of it as increasing your greenstaff by a few trillion, without the wage bill to match.
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