Technical
There is some very interesting technology, currently being trialed in the farming
industry, that will have a huge impact on how turfcare professionals detect pests and disease, and it all revolves around Electronic Noses!
Tony Kvedaras, from Independent Turfcare Solutions, explains
ow would you feel if your greens started shouting to you for help, the next time they were attacked by Fusarium? How would you feel if your greens groaned in agony when they became stressed to, say drought? How would you feel if your greens asked you politely if you would be so good as to get rid of the pesky Leatherjackets that are chewing away at their roots? Well, this might well be a scenario that
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turfcare professionals of the future will have to face on a daily basis! Let me explain this “glimpse” into the future. As I am a member of the ABA (Association of Applied Biologists), I attend several conferences in any particular year. Just before Christmas, I attended a conference where the topic was “The Early Detection of Pests and Diseases of Plants”. I thought that this would be of great interest, particularly if it proved to be of use to turf managers who have to manage their turf in a way which minimises any impact from Fusarium and other fungal diseases. What I actually discovered on the day was fascinating, and gave me a potential insight into the future of turf management
Do you LISTEN when YOUR turf CRIES for HELP?
Get this ...
Apparently, every plant in the world, whenever it comes under attack from any pest or disease that threatens its well- being, emits a ‘cry for help’, and this cry for help starts well before (sometimes days and days) any actual visible symptoms of any outbreak becomes apparent.
The cry for help is a somewhat new concept, but what is really exciting is the fact that, sometime soon, we will actually be able to hear it, and take the best and most appropriate action in order to rescue the plant from the danger it finds itself in, at the earliest possible opportunity.
All this would transform the science of pest and disease management and in a big way.
Let me explain ...
The “Cry for Help” is a generic term and not a literal one. What I mean is that it is not an actual sound, it is an actual smell. What are smells? When we sniff something, anything, what is it that we are actually sensing? We are actually detecting and sensing a combination of chemical compounds within the atmosphere, and the ‘blueprint’ of the
selection and number of compounds tells us what the actual smell is. So, for example, the smell of frying bacon and eggs is a particular ‘blueprint’ of compounds that most of us recognise, as is any other smell, either pleasant or foul, that we have had previous experience of. Once our brains have determined what each smell relates to, then we build up our own databases in our minds so that we can recognise those smells in the future. Most of us would recognise bacon and eggs, fish and chips, Chanel No 5 or, at the other end of the scale, stale bread, rotten fish or decaying flesh, because we have had prior experience of the smells.
The compounds that plants emit into the atmosphere, when under attack from any pest or disease, are actually smells and, because they are too faint for us to detect with our noses, we have been blissfully unaware of their existence ... until now! For the last few years, scientists have been designing and developing pieces of equipment which have the generic name “Electronic Noses”, and they do exactly what it says on the tin. Electronic Noses are basically sensors (or a series of sensors) which are able to
122 PC APRIL/MAY 2012 Fairy Rings
Fusarium
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