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By Amy Ellingham in Industry on 8th Mar 2010 10:00
Thanks to the freezing weather, the majority of our greenkeepers and groundsmen have been unable to complete their winter aeration programme this year. For many, this essential task will instead be brought forward to early spring when the ground has thawed and incorporated into spring or summer renovation programmes.
Specialist grass seed breeder Barenbrug is urging turf professionals to make the best of a bad situation by getting better quality grass seed mixtures into the ground this spring. Why? Because come rain or shine, snow or drought, Britain's weather is becoming ever more unpredictable and adverse, with these conditions taking their toll on our turf.
Grass seed mixtures that offer positive attributes such as waterlogging, shade and drought tolerance and, in particular, good disease tolerance have a vital role to play in improving turf's performance in difficult conditions and safeguarding it against future bad weather. And now, says Barenbrug's research and development manager Jayne Leyland, is the ideal time to overseed with such mixtures.
"Don't despair! You can make delayed renovations work that bit harder for you by overseeding with mixtures that offer better protection from, and performance in, adverse conditions, which will also help to 'future-proof' your turf when bad weather strikes again," she says. "What's more, when the weather turns warmer after the cold snap, it's likely that disease incidence will increase, so it's more important than ever to select mixtures with good tolerance to diseases like leaf spot, fusarium and dollar spot, which was particularly prevalent last summer."
Fortunately, Barenbrug has the products and technical tools to help turf professionals choose the appropriate mixture for overseeding in these circumstances.
As Jayne continues: "Whether they're seeking disease tolerance and recovery to cope with fluctuating environmental stress, or rapid cool soil temperature germination and establishment for emergency repairs and renovation in cold soils and rootzones, we can show turf professionals how mixture selection can help them achieve this through, say, the superior combined disease tolerance of mixtures such as BAR Fescue or our proven rapid turf repair mixture, BAR 50 SOS. And this is backed by our technical offering in the form of our FACTfiles, which provide trials data and indispensible advice on specific disease tolerance and cool temperature germination."
To find out more about Barenbrug's BAR range or to download its latest FACTfiles, visit www.barenbrug.co.uk. Alternatively, call 01359 272000 or email info@baruk.co.uk.
Read more articles in Industry, by Amy Ellingham or from March 2010.
