PLANT PROTECTION
T E C H N I C A L U P D AT E
THE CHANGING FACE OF PLANT PROTECTION
The rules regarding plant protection products have been under the spotlight, perhaps more now than ever before. Bayer’s Dr Colin Mumford explains the changes and gives his predictions for the future
L
ike them or not, plant protection products (PPPs) have a role to play in the maintenance and upkeep of good-quality playing surfaces and surrounding areas, whether they be a fungicide, insecticide or herbicide.
By Dr Colin Mumford Bayer technical manager
22 THE GROUNDSMAN February 2019
THE INTEGRATED APPROACH
PPPs should only be considered and integrated into a maintenance programme once all the relevant cultural and biological practices have been taken into account and carried out where practicable. Cultural methods are the physical actions performed by a turf professional. These include scarifying to reduce organic matter, aerating to relieve compaction, or simply mowing to control the height of the turf
canopy. Biological practices essentially introduce live constituents to the turf. Examples of this include overseeding to introduce new grass varieties or species to improve the sward composition, or applying entomopathogenic nematodes to control nuisance insect pests, such as chafer grubs and leatherjackets. The monitoring of influencing factors is equally important in modern day groundskeeping. Measuring, recording, and analysing factors such as the weather will enable the calculation of growth degree days and growth potential, for example. This enables management decisions to be as well-informed as possible. The use of PPPs should be the final piece in the ‘integrated jigsaw’.