TECHNICAL


aren’t eff ective enough to reduce the levels of casting to acceptable levels and the cost can’t be justifi ed.


At ICL, we haven’t gone down the road of producing a product in this market due to our values of only supplying ‘products that perform’ and, whilst we have investigated and researched in this area, we are yet to see a result that is eff ective enough to put our name to. It feels like turf managers are also experiencing this and hence why the debate continues around having an eff ective


treatment available.


What about ‘soil conditioners’? They seem to have partially fi lled the vacuum left by Carbendazim. These tend to be saponin based which is a derivative of tea oil. This is a really uncomfortable area for me to discuss. I understand the frustrations that worm castings bring when managing turf and the pressures to deliver quality surfaces for players, but that said, it is often seen that these ‘soil conditioners’ are being applied to control worms and some with devastating


eff ect. I personally have an issue here; if we are applying a product that has a direct eff ect on a pest, like we see with some of these products, then it is being applied as a pesticide and therefore should be registered and regulated. This isn’t to increase price and favour larger businesses that have the resources to get products registered. It is simply to keep the user, the public and the environment safe by understanding the full impact of the product. If they are killing worms, then it’s safe to say there is potentially some damaging material in there that poses a risk to the user, public and environment and that should be assessed to see if its suitable for use. Of course, this won’t happen due to reasons explained earlier in that when wanting to get a product approved as a pesticide, manufacturers now have to prove the product doesn’t have a detrimental eff ect on worms. That’s a pretty big obstacle to overcome when trying to get a product that eradicates them approved! So, what is the future? Cultural practises should always be the fi rst port of call and brushing, sanding, acidifying the surface etc. all have their part to play, however, if these were truly eff ective to a point that they reduce casting issues to an acceptable level, then there currently wouldn’t be such levels of frustration at not having more options to control them. And hopefully we have established the current issues regarding


We could not (with a


clear conscience) market substances that clearly have pesticidal properties as nutritional, soil conditioning or bio-stimulatory


120 PC April/May 2021


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