AROUND THE TRADE AROUND THE TRADE
SYNGENTA ADDS PENNMAG, MEDALLION TO PRODUCT ARSENAL
A Medallion contact fungicide and Pennmag pre-emergent herbicide are Syngenta’s two latest products to hit the turf market this season
GCSA Gold Partner Syngenta has launched two new products onto the market this spring – Pennmag pre-emergent turf herbicide and Medallion turf fungicide. Pennmag (a.i. 960 g/L S-metolachlor) can be used on most established warm- and cool-season turf species (buffalo, carpet grass, common couch, hybrid couch, kikuyu, Queensland blue couch, seashore paspalum, zoysia, bentgrass, fescue and perennial ryegrass) and can deliver up to eight weeks of residual control when applied prior to weed emergence. Applied at 2l/ha, Pennmag targets the likes of African love grass, annual ryegrass, barnyard grass, burr medic, carrot weed, crowsfoot grass, liverseed grass, pigeon grass, summer grass and winter grass. “The addition of Pennmag to the Syngenta product line-up means turf managers now have a suitable tool to get warm-season turf bouncing out of their winter slumber while still maintaining good control of summer annual grasses,” says Syngenta technical manager Dr Mark Walker. “With the pre-emergent market dominated by actives coming from the Group D family, there has traditionally been a slight compromise needing to be made when wanting complete weed control and maximum turf recovery simultaneously. “The Group D herbicides have a mode of action of microtubule assembly inhibitors (root pruners in simple terms) meaning turf suffering badly from winter wear and in desperate need of lateral growth to knit back up had an additional impediment of difficulty pegging down to anchor new runners. “It’s a short-term issue, narrow in time, but
TURFKEEPER.COM.AU LAUNCHES IN AUSTRALIA
Turfkeeper.com.au is an online turf management tool for course superintendents
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Online turf management tool Turfkeeper has launched in Australia. In mid-October at The Lakes Golf Club, Daryl Sellar (Turfwise Consulting) and Jeff Blunden (Golf Business Advisory Services) outlined the benefits of Turfkeeper to a number of senior facility and turf managers in attendance at the Sydney launch. Sellar and Blunden have secured the exclusive distribution licence for Australia/NZ and Asia for Turfkeeper, a UK-developed management programme that provides turf managers with an oversight of staff management, turf maintenance practices, machinery use, chemical applications and department budgeting. “Within a club environment, all other operational areas have dedicated pieces of software to help
AUSTRALIAN TURFGRASS MANAGEMENT 17.6
very important to those whose job it is to produce a good surface in warm-season turf fields – fast. Pennmag is a short-term, non-root pruning preemergent herbicide, available to slot into a 6-8 week window, with a spectrum that covers the major annual weedy grasses.” Medallion (a.i. 125g/L fludioxonil) is a new contact fungicide developed by Syngenta for the control of anthracnose, brown patch, dollar spot, helminthosporium disease, winter fusarium/ microdochium patch. Available in a 5L pack size, Medallion attacks germinating spores and developing fungal mycelium to rapidly clean and protect external surfaces. The longer reach of Medallion into the leaf tissue allows the ‘early curative’ window to be wider than is possible for other contact fungicides. “Medallion is an all-year, any time option, extremely versatile, broad spectrum and uses low application rates per hectare,” explains Walker. “As you would expect, formulation quality is outstanding, buffered against variable water quality with incredibly fine milling for outstanding surface area coverage. “Medallion doesn’t stop at the external surfaces of turf leaves; it has a far greater reach into the leaf. If you use it as a true preventative, more vulnerable tissues are treated for the same effort previously applied. For diseases where activity has commenced, control is possible deeper into the disease progression.” For more information about Pennmag preemergent herbicide and Medallion fungicide, view the product fact sheets at www.greencast. com.au
support the delivery and administration of services provided,” says Blunden. “With turf management, the key asset of all facilities, data capture and record keeping is still manual in many cases. With Turfkeeper, all actions are captured and importantly talk to one another. “For example employee time is no longer only reflected in a time sheet. In Turfkeeper time also attaches to a task, which adds to machine use hours, decrements stock levels, feeds the budget and allows for much more thorough, automated reporting. Complete oversight is now possible.” Adds Sellar: “There is no doubt that more information is being sought from turf managers, and rightfully so. It’s our view that further management collaboration can occur and this tool not only readily provides information but does so in an easy to use and illustrative way.”