This summer’s repeated high heat and drought stress conditions will thin lawn swards and is likely to result in increased weed infestations over the autumn and into next spring, warns Syngenta Technical Manager, Pete May.
Speaking at the UK Lawn Care Association Summer Festival this week, (Wednesday 15 July), will say: “Turf has already had to endure record June temperatures across large parts of the country. With another, more extensive, heatwave in July and little or no rain forecast, there’s yet more pressure on plant health and vigour.”
The experience of last year’s prolonged drought conditions that seriously thinned turf cover, and the resulting extreme weed infestation to fill the gaps, indicates the pressure lawn and turf care professionals are likely to face later this year.
“While most lawn turf will survive and recover from periods of drought and heat, it inevitable leaves spaces for weeds to germinate and thrive when autumn conditions allow. Turf care professionals need a strategy ready to cope with multiple weed populations and at different growth stages,” he advises.
Pete advocates the new herbicide, Crenzar, from Syngenta, is well suited to start the early autumn weed control programme, covering a wide spectrum of typical weed species affecting lawns. It has also shown good results on many difficult to control weeds, where seeds have blown in from surrounding farmland or bird droppings.
“The dual mode of action from two effective herbicide active ingredients enhances control of different weed species. It also has two complementary modes of action that targets both leaves and shoots, for long-lasting effects.”
“Crenzar is especially useful for turf-care professionals, since it has approved for knapsack application, as well as conventional boom sprayer,” he adds.
For a complete autumn programme turf mangers can use Crenzar through to the end of August, followed by Overtake through to the end of October. The earlier weeds can be targeted in the autumn, while they are still small and actively growing, the more effective the results, highlights Pete.
“Now having the chance to use two different herbicides, individually or in sequence, has been shown to give really good results going into the winter. There is also the flexibility of the approach to target later emerging weeds in the spring, once active growth resumes.”
Knapsack nozzle application research
To further improve application and results Syngenta demonstrated a new development nozzle specifically for knapsack treatments for the first time at the UK Lawn Care Association event.
Developed from concept by the Syngenta Turf & Landscape Application Research Team, the nozzle features a twin-jet anvil construction specifically designed to optimise consistent coverage on lawns, managed cut turf and hard surfaces.
The nozzle is now in final pre-production testing and full field evaluation across the UK and Europe.
