Turf Care in Tune with the Environment by Humate International

University Trials and Customers Prove Our Organics Programs Will Suppress Disease Without Fungicides

It is becoming more generally accepted that the cost-effective way for golf course superintendents to combat disease is to create a healthy soil/plant environment with the ability to suppress pathogens. Nature’s approach is to build a forest with a diversity of trees and plants and a soil environment that is loaded with high-energy organic materials to support an active, balanced microbial population…and this forest takes care of itself without external inputs of fertilizer and fungicides. A golf course is, however, a very different situation with one species of plant that is constantly under stress due to short mowing heights, compaction from foot and vehicle traffic, and chemical sprays.

To enable our customers to create an ecosystem that operates like a forest, we have developed protocols utilizing our unique, high-energy HUMATE organics and BIOSYST microbial inoculants. With these basic components in place, we support the plant/soil system using our efficient and effective HUMATE Rejuvenator and MicroFeed organic nutrients and BIOSYST Monthly microbial support materials in an easy to maintain, ongoing program.

To prove this works, we sponsored two years of university trials to test our complete program without any fungicides against two diseases on golf greens in replicated, statistically-significant studies. The results were dramatic as shown in the table to the right with the following conclusions:

• Our organics program suppressed disease well within the parameters of the researcher.
• The program works best as a preventative before the potential onset of any disease.
• Turfgrass maintenance should include our organic protocol to the end of the growing season.

It is important to note that not all organics are the same; that, for example, the word “humate” is used to describe a class of organics ranging from our young, high-CEC humified plant matter HUMATE to the low-CEC products based upon leonardite that is mined as the overburden on coal deposits. The bar graphs below illustrate this difference in three commercially available “humates.” We pride ourselves in producing the highest-quality products and protocols to provide the maximum benefit from our organic turfgrass maintenance programs.

Our customers are starting to employ our organic protocols on their golf courses and are proving they work in practice as well as on closely supervised university test plots. The picture above was taken this spring at a golf course that applied our less comprehensive fairway protocol wall-to-wall in 2017 without any fungicide… and had no serious disease issue. The superintendent also realized a 50% reduction in his fertilizer requirement. He is continuing with this program in 2018.

For more information on what our HUMATE products can do for you, call (800) 393-4769. You can also access our web address: www.humateintl.com