Insights on plant health solutions

Frank Wong, Ph.D., is a member of the Bayer Green Solutions Team.

Plant health, plant health, plant health. It’s a buzzword that’s being thrown ad nauseum in the current turf management Zeitgeist. So what does it mean for Joe Schmoes like you and me when it comes to turf management? To me, it means the ability to grow disease-free, vigorous plants that stand up to abuse and stress. When your turf is subjected to these factors and still expected to perform consistently as a tee, fairway or putting green, you may need extra help in the form of plant health solutions.

Of course, healthy turf requires some basic ingredients: sun, air, water, soil and good agronomic practices. After all, it’s a living, breathing system. As the demands on turf increase, you need extra help to keep it healthy and performing under sub-par conditions. For example, does a road side stand of fescue need extra help? Probably not. Does annual bluegrass mowed at 1/8-inch, grown with minimal nitrogen and water to create fast and firm conditions, and subjected to 60,000 rounds of golf a year need extra help? Most definitely, and that’s where plant health solutions come into play.

The best analogy I can use is my sorry state as a 13-mile-a-week, overweight, recreational runner. Sure, on my diet of burgers, ravioli and kung pao chicken I can finish mid-pack in any 5K fun run. If I ever expect to run a 2:02:57 marathon like Dennis Kimetto did this September, you bet I’m going to need help: a better diet, a better training plan and probably all that modern science can offer.

So going back to plant health; there are a lot of products and strategies out there that try to provide that extra help. Bayer has a clear strategy in delivering plant health solutions that work through its StressGard Formulation Technology. Starting with research and development of Chipco Signature in the 1990s, Bayer has built a family of solutions that provide extra help to keep abused turf disease-free, healthy and consistently performing.

Each of the Bayer plant health solutions utilizes StressGard Formulation Technology benefits to meet specific demands of plants subjected to abuse and stress. StressGard Formulation Technology components include patented photosynthesis enhancers, UV-radiation protectants, oxidative stress reducers, and turf color and quality enhancers. Stressed plants are most likely to develop diseases, so it makes perfect sense to match StressGard Formulation Technology with anti-fungal chemistries to deliver complete plant health solutions.

Chipco Signature has specific effects on induced resistance and photosynthesis enhancement that help plants maintain vigor and growth in poor growing or low light conditions (e.g., during summer stress and in spring and fall transition periods when plants need more energy to survive). Tartan is a DMI-fungicide that provides broad-spectrum disease control and high turf quality, even under conditions when most DMIs would cause negative plant growth regulator effects. Interface StressGard was designed to provide an ‘anytime’ solution for disease control when turf vigor is especially challenged, e.g., for snow mold control in the dead of winter, dollar spot control in the dog days of summer, and leaf spot control on bermudagrass during cool, low-light transitional periods. Fiata StressGard and Mirage StressGard were both designed to bring plant health benefits and disease control to fairway turf with fairway budgets in mind.

Plant health solutions definitely have a place when you look at turf that requires that extra help when performance and consistency are needed under stress. There’s a lot of choices out there for getting that extra help and I always joke about an old Chinese saying that translates to, “there’s a thousand ways to make spaghetti sauce, some are better than others.” In this case, Bayer’s StressGard Formulation Technology fungicides provide a solid recipe and strategy for plant health solutions when they are needed most.