LAWN CARE CORNER
By Matthew Weaver
Understanding the Basics and Business OPPORTUNITIES OF FUNGICIDE Today’s political environment may be creating a new niche of business from which you can expand your lawn care service offering.
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ver the course of a year, lawn care operators tend to worry most about labor, equipment and keeping their customers satisfied. If you ever have a chance to think about turf grass, it is usually fertilizers, herbicides and cultural practices that consume most of your thoughts. However, in nearly every part of the country, turf-grass pathogens can negatively impact your customers’ turf quality. In some cases, you can grow the turf out, but in others, it may make more economic sense to apply fungicides to help prevent lasting damage. This article discusses what types of fungicides are available, in addition to how the political environment is creating a new niche of business from which you can actually expand your business offering.
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Where to Start
Let’s look at fungicides as a whole. Usually, the first question is: When does it make economic sense to apply a fungicide? In a proper integrated pest management (IPM) program, one of the first things you need to do is determine a threshold. In agriculture, it is very simple to determine the threshold—it’s where the cost of the crop yield loss exceeds the cost of the application. In turf, it is a bit more subjective, but ultimately, it is when the damage exceeds your customers’ expectations. You should also include the cost of the fungicide application compared to the cost to repair or rectify the damage sustained. The cost to repair damage may include multiple applications of pesticides, seeding, labor, etc. This becomes an even easier decision on sites where there is history of disease occurring on a regular basis.
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Types of Fungicides
The three basic types of fungicides include: • Contact fungicides. • Systemic fungicides. • Plant activator fungicides. Contact fungicides essentially create a protective barrier on the outside of the plant. They usually protect turf for seven to 14 days. Systemic fungicides actually go inside of the plant to defend it from within, protecting the plant for up to 28 days. If turf grass is under attack when you make an application, it is generally thought that systemic fungicides are the way to go. Systemics also have an advantage when it comes to root diseases like take-all patch and spring dead spot. In contrast, plant activator fungicides trigger the plant to boost its defense response and protect the plant for up to 28 days. By triggering the plant’s defense
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