Dont Forget Your Sunscreen

We’re approaching the dog days of summer.  Temperatures are at their heights, disease pressure is at its greatest, and we are all focusing our efforts on minimizing turf loss as much as possible.  For many of us, it’s routine to apply sunscreen before we leave the house this time of the year if we are planning on being outside for extended periods of time.  It’s common knowledge now that UVA rays from the sun can be very damaging to the human skin and even lead to various forms of skin cancer.  So why not transfer this knowledge and line of thinking into minimizing summer turf stress? 

Over the past few years, the use of pigments has become commonplace in superintendents’ programs and provides many benefits to the plant and overall turf quality.  Some of these benefits include shielding chloroplasts from harmful UVA and UVB rays, cooling the surface of the plant, increasing transpiration, and decreasing photorespiration.  Ancillary benefits achieved will be increased efficacy and performance of fungicide and foliar fertilizer applications, increased water management, and an overall more efficient use and production of plant carbohydrates. 

Talk to your local ATS sales rep to discuss the ETQ line of fungicides.  They have combined pigment with actives such as chlorothalonil, iprodione, and tebuconazole in a cost effective manner that can be incorporated into any budget to help reduce the effects of summer turf stress. Reduced turf stress is going to be in direct correlation with reduced job stress!

Kurt Dryden
ATS Sales Representative