I am frequently asked about the difference between our 80/20, 60/40 and 40/60 Premium Fescue/Bent Grass Seed Mixes. On the surface, it might just look like a simple percentage change, but there’s quite a lot going on behind those numbers that can affect both the long-term performance of your green and the cost of the mix.
Grasses employ a range of physical, chemical, and indirect defences to protect their roots from insect herbivores. Further research is needed to fully understand these mechanisms and to explore other potential defences, but meantime, we can take some of this knowledge and apply it now to our greenkeeping practices.
Mycorrhizal fungi and turf health go hand in hand. The symbiotic relationships that exist between our turf grass plants and soil fungi are critical to producing a high performance, perennial grass dominated sward. Here we look at the benefits of mycorrhizal relationships in turf and the techniques greenkeepers can employ to encourage them.
Beyond plant growth, seaweed feeds the microbial community that underpins a healthy green. Polysaccharides like laminarin and fucoidan stimulate beneficial soil microbes, improve aggregation, and enhance nutrient cycling.
Each individual grass plant releases sugars through its roots to attract beneficial microbes. In return, those microbes mine nutrients from the soil, cycle organic matter, suppress disease, and improve soil structure. This is so important to the health of plants that they give up around 50% of the sugar they produce during photosynthesis as root exudates.
