By Syngenta Australia

Ask different industries what their key challenges are moving into the future, and one common issue arises: finding ways to reduce your environmental impact while maintaining performance and productivity.

This is especially true for today's turf managers. Caring for local parks, green spaces and sports fields is an essential service, but it also creates a carbon footprint and uses up a substantial amount of resources. Many of us are looking for ways to reduce this impact - for the sake of our planet's future, but also to meet community expectations regarding sustainability and action on climate change.

The good news is technology is helping the turf industry meet this challenge head on. Plant Growth Regulators (PGRs) have made significant inroads towards reducing the environmental impact of maintenance practices, with tangible outcomes such as longer spray intervals, reduced mowing frequency and clippings, improved stress tolerance and healthier grass that can better withstand extreme weather events caused by climate change.

This leads to a much more sustainable and productive maintenance schedule: a win for managers, the communities and clients they serve, and the environment.

How Plant Growth Regulators work

A PGR is an innovative solution that influences a plant's growth and development. It can be used as a management tool on a wide range of turfgrass commonly found in public spaces, such as Buffalo, Couch (Common, Hybrid and QLD Blue), Kikuyu, Zoysia, Bent, Fescue and Perennial rye grass.

Recent types of PGRs, such as Syngenta's turf growth regulator, Primo Maxx, are formulated as a micro emulsion concentrate that quickly enters the leaves and shoots before systemically moving throughout the entire plant. Once absorbed, the active ingredient works to temporarily block the plant's ability to produce a growth hormone called Gibberellic Acid. This suppresses the plant's vertical growth while allowing normal processes like photosynthesis and respiration to continue. Energy is diverted into the plant's lateral growth, resulting in smaller and finer leaves, increased tillering, and a larger, deeper root mass. The turf becomes denser with a more vibrant colour the public can enjoy.

Save water with PGRs

Regular PGR application ticks a lot of sustainability boxes, the biggest one being greener grass with less water requirements. This is due to a number of factors:

• Research from Rutgers University shows only 3% of water taken up by turf grass is used in photosynthesis, while 90% is lost in transpiration. PGRs like Primo Maxx improve water management efficiency by encouraging the stomates (pores) of a plant to close for longer periods, which slows down the rate of water lost through transpiration.
• PGRs increase turf density, which reduces the amount of water evaporating from the ground
• Plants treated with PGR have roots that grow deeper and larger, providing better access to soil moisture and nutrients so the plant stays green and healthy for longer
• Slowing down turf growth allows the plant to accumulate higher reserves of carbohydrates, which improves its resilience in extreme weather events that may be caused by climate change

Ultimately, this means that if Primo Maxx is consistently incorporated into your maintenance schedule at the right amounts, less water is needed to maintain the turf's quality. A&M University in Texas, for example, found that when Primo Maxx was applied to Hybrid Couch on a golf course over a three month period, the amount of water needed for irrigation decreased from 24ml per 100sqm to just 8ml per 100sqm, saving around 750,000L of water across a 12 hectare space.

This benefit could easily be transferred to council green spaces and sporting facilities, to reduce water usage while producing thicker, more resilient turf that can better withstand long periods without rain.

Control growth and mow less

Slowing down turf growth also decreases the need to mow, which in turn reduces waste and makes maintenance practices far more sustainable. Applying Primo Maxx to turfgrass effectively holds back vertical grass growth within 3 to 4 weeks of initial application. This leads to many benefits:

• Increased mowing speed and efficiency
• Minimised wear and tear on equipment, more downtime and better machinery performance with not as much force used to cut the turf
• Less post-mowing operations such as dragging
• Greater flexibility in cutting intervals, mitigating the disruptive impact of rain on schedules
• Less herbicides needed, as a smaller number of weeds germinate with regular PGR use due to denser turfgrass minimising the amount of soil exposed to the sun
• A smaller carbon footprint with less input requirements such as fuel, putting you one step closer to becoming carbon neutral
• Less or lighter renovation practises required as less thatch is built over a period of time through less clipping being produced.

On the other end of the scale, PGR use also helps minimise waste. When used at the label rate, Primo Maxx noticeably reduces clippings by around 50% over the season. Smaller clippings decompose much more easily in the thatch without contributing to build-up, while clipping disposal becomes much more efficient and easier, with less impact on the environment.

When put together, all these benefits can help ease the pressure on tight budgets. Reducing mowing by 40%, for example, can save up to $6,000 in fuel costs over a year, while cutting down on clippings has an impact on future renovation costs. This frees up much needed funds for reallocation into other areas of your maintenance schedule, as well as creating a positive impact on the environment and reducing your overall carbon footprint.

Stand up to turf stress and extreme heat

Increased temperatures adds to turf stress on the sports field or greenspace, resulting in an undesirable loss of colour, turf density and quality.

Various research trials and turf managers' on-the-ground experience have consistently shown that incorporating Primo Maxx into your maintenance program helps turf effectively withstand the effects of stress and recover faster. The main reason is that Primo Maxx applications increase the level of bioactive cytokinins in the plant, improving its tolerance to heat and drought-induced stress. This allows the turf to recover faster from drought effects, extreme heat, or stress from high traffic and heavy play.

How to get the most out of PGRs for your turf

Alongside improving the sustainability of your maintenance practices, there are many ways PGRs can provide significant environmental benefits, such as:

• Over-seeding preparation - by applying Primo Maxx 1-5 days before over-seeding or inter-seeding operations, you can enhance new seedling development with no negative effect on seed germination (just remember to apply the lowest rate when seed heads are present)
• Ensuring the longevity of your turf - use PGRs as a pre-stress conditioning tool for Bent greens before hot, stressful summers or sports fields before high traffic seasons
• Reducing maintenance needs on edges that are difficult to mow
• Tank-mixing with fungicides and foliar fertilisers to enhance their performance and minimise their use, as the chemical is less likely to be quickly removed through mowing
• Retaining line durability and visibility for longer. Line marking in conjunction with Primo Maxx reduces the need for line marking paint over the course of the season, leading to significant cost and time savings. Furthermore, Primo Maxx retains healthy grass cover beneath the line marking paint, which avoids the need for reseeding at the end of the season.

The right application is always key to achieving good results with a PGR, so it's important to track the growth rate of your turfgrass alongside the rate of PGR application.

This will ensure your maintenance schedule not only creates efficiencies and produces beautiful green spaces, but also makes a positive impact on the planet.

Visit syngenta.com.au to learn more about Syngenta Australia