It’s all about Grass Seed

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It’s all about Grass Seed: Stronger germination and faster establishment are key.

DLF Seed’s ProNitro Coating Technology has been helping greenkeepers and groundsmen achieve stronger germination, faster establishment and lower input costs.

It’s all about Grass Seed

It’s all about Grass Seed

Four years on from its launch, the next generation of ProNitro is now available, featuring DLF’s new Hydroactive Water Management Technology. ProNitro’s targeted combination of controlled release nitrogen and sustainable water distribution optimises the delivery of essential nutrients and moisture to the developing seedling.

With sustainability an everincreasing priority for turf managers around the world, the ProNitro coating ensures available water is used more efficiently.

“The new ProNitro formulation has been conceived and developed as a direct action for input optimization on grasses, improving water distribution in the field. Making the best of every drop of water gives both the grass seed and the fertiliser the optimum conditions for establishment, strong root development and healthy, vigorous
growth,” explained Giovanny Lopez, Lead Seed Coat Technologist for DLF.

In trials, the coated seed contributed to a 34% increase in establishing plants and a 30% improvement in root growth. In addition, the targeted nitrogen application system reduces the leaching of unutilised fertiliser into the environment by more than 50% when compared to traditional chemical applications.

ProNitro combines sources of both fast-acting and slow release nitrogen with water management technology, encapsulated in a smooth outer coating for improved seed flow and accurate delivery. This ensures the new seed receives the full benefit of the available water and nutrition, encouraging the roots and shoots to grow rapidly – particularly important when overseeding into a competitive sward.

It is suitable for use on all types of playing surfaces and is available on a selection of popular mixtures from across the Johnsons Sports Seed range. On golf greens and football pitches, even those with low-fertility, sandy soils, ProNitro provides faster establishment, bringing surfaces back into play quicker. The improved uniformity and sward density also make it ideal for turf producers by reducing the invasion of Poa annua and broad-leaved weeds. Replacing the need for seedbed fertiliser, ProNitro saves both time and money.

Leaving the Brits in the shade

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Leaving the Brits in the shade: Tuesday February 18 saw two high profile events on the UK calendar. Both had a superb venue, both had a stellar cast of “performers”, both were celebrating significant birthdays, and both had an appreciative audience, many of whom had travelled considerable distances to attend.

But while the 40th anniversary of The Brits, at the O2 in London’s Docklands, experienced its fair share of drunkenness, swearing and miscellaneous bad behaviour, the 10th annual Dennis SISIS Seminar at the Emirates Riverside, home of Durham County Cricket Club, was conducted in impeccable style and there was no need for anyone to resort to the mute button to shield the audience from fruity language.

Leaving the Brits in the shade

Leaving the Brits in the shade

The weather was superb, ironic as Storm Dennis had wreaked havoc in many parts of the country but Seminar Dennis seemed to be blessed, fitting as host for the day was Durham CCC Head Groundsman Vic Demain, the man who had approached Roger Moore, of Dennis SISIS, 10 years ago to float the idea of a cricket-focussed seminar.

In 2020, with an audience of 130 plus and a list of speakers out of the very top drawer, the Seminar has come a long way since that first event in Uxbridge School back in 2011.

Delegates and speakers gathered the night before at Lumley Castle Hotel, overlooking the cricket ground and under the stewardship of the Dennis SISIS staff, Roger, Alison Pickering and Ewen Wilson, everyone enjoyed a superb meal, sharing the sort of tales and gossip which wouldn’t be surfacing in the more formal environment the following day.

Ewen and Vic kicked things off with the latter introducing Marcus North, the Durham Director of Cricket and a former Australian Test batsman. Marcus talked of the need for a strong relationship between the Director of Cricket and the Head Groundsman and how best results were achieved through establishing such a relationship and keeping their respective office doors open.

Following Marcus was Dr Iain James, of TGMA, who spoke on the Construction and Maintenance of a Cricket Pitch. Ian was followed by Ian Powell, the IOG’s Regional Pitch Advisor, who discussed Decision Making for Pre-season preparations.

Among the messages delivered was that good groundsmanship should always be tried before pitch reconstruction and that waiting was invariably a sensible option before undertaking tasks because the addition time often allowed the pitch to dry out even more.

Groundsman’s Corner preceded lunch. Hosted by Vic, an illustrious group comprising Karl McDermott, Head Groundsman at Lords; Sean Williams, Head Groundsman at Gloucester CCC; Gordon Gill, Head Groundsman at Bath Cricket Club as well as two rugby infiltrators, Jim Dawson, Head Groundsman at BT Murrayfield, and Keith Kent, Head Pitch Advisor to Rugby Groundsmen Connected and former Head Groundsman at both Old Trafford (football not cricket) and Twickenham. They talked about how they had entered the profession and shared best advice and best practice with the audience.

The afternoon session was launched by Barry Glynn, who expressed his well known frustrations of a Groundsman. Barry, now retired and based in Brighton where he plays three rounds of golf a week, is such a well regarded speaker that he has been booked to speak at the 150th birthday of WG Grace’s very own cricket club.

Barry was on safe ground and the nods of recognition and guffaws from the floor when he highlighted a perennial gripe made for an entertaining talk.

Keith Kent then took to the floor and he pointed out the synergies which exist when it comes to maintaining cricket and rugby pitches and how often, because a rugby field becomes a cricket outfield in the summer, special care was needed to ensure rogue bounces were avoided as much as possible from a well struck cricket ball.

He also reminisced about his time at both Old Trafford – complete with a picture of him playing for the Manchester United staff team – and Twickenham, where he and his small team were responsible for everything green – with the exception of the seats!

The question and answer session which closed the day was one of the highlights and covered everything from avoiding inadvertently offering information which could be used by illegal betting gangs, to the latest information on worm eradication.

Sponsors for the day included your very own Turf Matters, Limegrain, Poweroll, CricketWorld, Boughton, Fleet, Thomas Sherriff, Headland Amenity Products, SIS Pitches, Stuart Canvas Products and Facility and Sports Club Development.

Big thanks to Vic, Roger, Alison and Ewen for all the work involved in pulling such an event together, and for putting those Brits in the shade!

Case for the defence

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Case for the defence: The Christmas and New Year festivities are now just a lingering memory but though the days are starting to lengthen, there’s a long way to go before the onset of warmer weather.

With the turf suffering from prolonged periods of wet weather, waterlogged and weakened roots, the grass will be stressed and more open to disease attack. Deciding on which fungicide to defend your turf territory is key to ensuring a successful outcome. For winter applications, the requirement is to identify fungicides that contain ‘actives’ which work well under cool and cold conditions and, where possible, provide added physiological benefits.

Case for the defence

Particularly effective under cool, cold conditions is the broad spectrum turf fungicide Eland and applications now will provide disease protection for up to 50 days.

This long term protection is achieved through the spray deposit being held on the leaf long enough to penetrate and be held within the leaf tissue, which serves as a fungicide reservoir constantly releasing its active ingredient, pyraclostrobin, to provide long term protection.

Eland is specially suited to being applied as a preventative treatment, especially when disease pressure is high. It is very effective against all stages of the fungus within minutes of being applied and can restrain mycelial growth to provide additional curative activity.

Case for the defence

In addition to its proven abilities as a turf fungicide, research has shown Eland to have a number of additional physiological benefits.

Such benefits include improving plant health in the form of stress management under cold conditions and during aerification. This has the effect of helping the plant and root system to endure a stressful event and overcome stress through root system retention.

In addition to combating Microdochium Patch attack, a major benefit during early winter months is that applications of pyraclostrobin allows a plant to recover more quickly from root damage or surface foliar damage caused by ball mark injury.

Of course, prevention is always preferable and more effective than reacting after the event. STRI research trials prove that preventative disease control programmes outperform curative options when analysed for turf quality, colour and presence of Microdochium Patch (right).

The eight months trial compared nine preventative and three curative programmes, as well as one untreated plot. The first three programmes used purely preventative fungicides from Bayer. The rest of the preventative plots used a combination of Rigby Taylor fungicides, together as tank mixes with plant health products to reflect a more realistic approach. See bar chart, below right.

Case for the defence

In general, preventative programmes five to seven (see graph RT prog’s 1, 2 and 3) showed the most consistent results across turf colour, quality and Microdochium Patch presence by using an integrated approach with both fungicides and plant health products. The fungicides within the curative programmes (11 -13) were applied as and when disease developed to an unacceptable level, mimicking traditional control strategies. It is important to note that none of the trial plots had any cultural controls or biological practices applied prior to or during the trial, other than mowing and switching, which was carried out when necessary.

Pre-planning and control are essential requirements as it may be necessary to integrate some of the aforementioned products into the winter programme, which will enable the plant to resist or repel disease attack and be in an ideal state to advance into the spring in a healthy state.

Revolution in professional turf care

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Revolution in professional turf care: Strained sports turf surfaces are particularly stressed by the influence of walking on, playing on or driving on, which can lead to a change in the physical or chemical properties of the soil due to compaction. 

Compaction has negative effects on the vital growth of a healthy and durable grass population as well as on the functional safety due to the often highly reduced air and water permeability of the soil, a lack of water and nutrients available to plants, poor regeneration growth and changes in soil organic structure.

Revolution in professional turf care

The remedy can be found with the airter light 14160 – pneumatic soil aeration device for professionals, which loosens the lawn root zone homogeneously into a depth of 22 cm and supplies it with fresh oxygen.

This is done by steplessly adjustable compressed air in a continuous process. A football field can be completely processed in seven hours.

A total of 14 specially developed compressed air injection lances with triple jets push up to one million litres of air per pitch into the ground in an efficient working process.

The airter aerates the root zone homogeneously and with full coverage without any significant visible damage to the top surface. The penetration depth can be selected to match local soil conditions by using different lances so the soil compaction can be reduced up to 30% (verifiably tested). As a result, water flow and air circulation improve remarkably. Novokraft’s airsoftroll roller technology guarantees low ground pressure during sustainable aeration of the root zone with oxygen! Unique and unrivalled!

Advantages at a glance

• Effective and sustainable aeration of hybrid, sports and golf surfaces.
• Reduction of pesticide use and prevention of black layer through active ventilation. Efficient and biological pest control (e.g. larvae & grubs).
• Improved water absorption/storage within the root zone enabling shorter irrigation cycles and reduced water consumption, especially during the vegetation and heat periods.
• A measurable, homogeneous de-compaction of about 30% in the treated root zone layer.
• Reduction of downtime (no need for post-processing work, play areas can be walked on and played on directly, less waterlogging due to improved separating effect).
• Reduction of maintenance time (reduction of traditional aeration intervals and top-dressing needs, lower patch work and over-seeding requirements).
• Low maintenance cost (simple pneumatic/hydraulic system).
• Scientifically validated system (STRI in the UK and University of Hohenheim in Germany).
• Efficient operation (continuous operation, simple machine operation, high productivity).

The airter can demonstrably loosen the hardened hybrid turf systems. In all hybrid turf systems, the root zone cannot be optimally and professionally ventilated using conventional mechanical loosening methods (e.g. deep loosening with solid chisels).

Over time, these procedures inevitably lead to vertical compaction of the lawn base layer.

Novokraft has developed the airter to solve this problem and to professionally loosen the root zone. This prevents the formation of decomposition gases, which are toxic for lawn roots.

Practical tests on new hybrid turf fields have shown that with the loosening effect of the airter, the players subsequently felt the fields to be much softer.

Likewise, this homogeneous pneumatic loosening method massively improves all bioactivity in the soil. The airter is also ideally suited for the reliable maintenance of water permeability.

Prevention better than cure

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Prevention better than cure: Ian Robson Prosport UK & Ireland Importer/Distributor for Foley United, explains why relief grinding maximises the performance of reels by giving a factory finish every time.

Firstly, why is having sharp cylinders (reels) that are the correct shape so important anyway? The answer is obvious – unhealthy turf brings a whole host of other issues which are costly to correct. Therefore, prevention is a far more economic approach than a cure.

Prevention better than cure

A huge amount of research and development has gone into designing a cutting unit to produce the cleanest cut possible with the least amount of fraying and tissue damage to the plant.

The result is that all manufacturers of grass cutting equipment supply new units with relief ground edges.

Why Relief Grind?

Tests carried out by leading manufacturers have established that relief ground cylinders stay on cut up to three times longer than spun ground ones and require less horse power to drive the unit, resulting in greater fuel efficiency and less stress on the hydraulic power systems. In addition, a relief ground cylinder will withstand the abrasive effects of top dressing far better than one spun ground because the relief edge on both the bedknife and the cylinder allows the top dressing to clear the cutting blades easily, helping to prevent the dulling effect seen on spun only units.

Continual relief grinding also decreases the squeezing and tearing of the grass as the units get dull, and most importantly it allows the cylinder to be returned to a factory specification perfect cylinder as quickly as possible.

The overall cleaner cut achieved by relief grinding gives a better after-cut appearance, increased recovery rate due to the clean cut of the grass and reduces the stress on components because less horsepower is needed to drive the cylinder.

Horse Power Study

As a reel wears flat and loses shape (becomes coned), more stress and strain is put on the cutting systems.

Using the figures from the above study a 5-gang cutting unit with relief can require up to 4.5 HP (5 x 0.88HP = 4.5HP) to drive the cutting units therefore a 35HP engine has 30.5HP remaining to drive the rest of the traction system. A 5-gang unit which has been spun ground only, can require up to 13Hp (5 x 2.59HP = 13HP) leaving only 22HP to drive the rest of the traction system.

So, it has been established that relief grinding your cutting units saves you money not only by reducing workshop maintenance time with far fewer grinds but also through a reduction in fuel costs and replacement parts.

It is also important to acknowledge what relief grinding does for a reel. By removing metal from the trailing edge of the blade it forms a relief angle, which reduces the contact area of the cutting edges, resulting in less friction, longer wear life. Typically, when a new mower is delivered the reels will be a perfect cylindrical shape. Over time the blade naturally loses shape, and the sharp edge it arrives with becomes flat and dull, often meaning the reel is no longer a perfect cylinder from end to end. This is referred to as ‘coning’ and a natural point for grinding to take place.

The decision then sits between touch-up and spin grinding, or relief grinding. If there is sufficient relief still on the reel then a quick touch-up is fine but once more than 50% of the relief has gone my advice would be to relief grind again and remove any coning. Failure to remove the coning will eventually be seen in an uneven cut appearance of your turf.

But, the main question mentioned at the beginning comes back; how to get the most out of your workshop resources by choosing the most effective method to sharpen your cutting units. The answer is to trust the manufacturers judgement and return the reels as close to the original factory standard as possible, and for that, relief grinding is the best option. The bonus is this method also maximises performance and gives the best cut.