Integrated Pest Management for Golf Courses - Part One

Dr Ruth Mann, The Sports Turf Research Institute

In the first of a series of features relating to turfgrass management, Dr Ruth Mann of the STRI sets out a broad explanation of Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

Controlling pests, weeds and diseases on Golf courses throughout Europe is not easy. Many intertwined factors must be considered to ensure that the best grass species are growing in optimum conditions, hence reducing the impact of pests, weeds and diseases.

This type of management is often called Integrated Pest Management (IPM). There is a lot of terminology surrounding IPM that can serve to complicate the topic and make the establishment of an environmentally responsible turfgrass management programme seem overly difficult. This introductory piece aims to clarify the terminology that will be used in future articles.

The first definition required is ‘Pest’. Pest can be used to describe anything that can infest or infect desirable plants such as turfgrasses. Therefore, the term pest would include insects, earthworms, weeds and diseases. Hence, IPM is used to describe the management of pests, diseases and weeds. Where only diseases are being discussed, it may be termed Integrated Disease Management (IDM), but this would not include pests or weeds. Further to this Integrated Turf Management (ITM) has also been used to describe the management of pests, weeds and diseases in turf as opposed to agricultural or horticultural pests.

Grass species selection is very important for IPM. Ideally, a mixed sward would be chosen as this gives the optimum chance of one grass species surviving if another is infected by disease. However, in areas where certain diseases are more prevalent the least affected grass species may be sown in monoculture. In may also be important to investigate disease tolerance within single species and sow a blend of varieties. Maintaining the sown sward to prevent the ingress of weed grass species such as Poa annua is important for many reasons. Generally, Poa annua requires more irrigation, fertiliser and fungicide applications than the traditionally sown Agrostis or Festuca species.

Managing thatch is very important for IPM. Thatch is the layer of organic matter formed as grass leaves die and collect at the base of the sward. Thatch may be physically removed by hollow-coring and scarification. Aeration helps to break down the thatch layer as more beneficial microbes (bacteria and fungi) are present in aerobic rootzones and use the organic matter as a food source. Also the particles used in top dressing help to physically break down the dead leaves, creating more surface area for the beneficial microbes to work on.

Cultural controls - such as dew removal, fertilisation, scarification and top dressing - are the practices that greenkeepers most probably think of as their day to day jobs. Paying attention to these, for example, by determining the nitrate source in your fertiliser, can reduce the risk of diseases infecting the grass sward or may reduce the severity of the disease outbreak.

Biological controls use other organisms to control the pest, weed or pathogen present. For example, using beneficial fungi to fill the space that could be occupied by the pathogen. This would reduce the level of pathogen, which may be lower than that required for development of the disease symptoms.

Plant Protection Products (PPPs) are the insecticides, herbicides or fungicides used to manage the pest, weed or disease present. There will be differences in the expected control between different products. Also, the optimum timing of control should be used to ensure you get the best from the product. Each product will have an impact on the environment. As directed by many European codes of practice for using Plant Protection Product, the product least hazardous to the environment should be used.

However, in my opinion the most important aspect of any IPM programme is keeping records on the pest, weed or disease occurrence in terms of timing of the outbreak, area affected, control measures put in place and their effectiveness. This will allow you to develop the most effective management programme over time, and will allow you to identify the specific pest and disease thresholds for your course. Other valuable information to gather includes weather conditions at and just before the outbreak, number of insect larvae present, severity of the disease, irrigation input, fertiliser input and type, etc.

An in-depth article elaborating on each of these aspects - featuring real world examples - will appear in the next issue of GEE's FOReUM newsletter. We hope this preliminary article offers an insight into IPM.

Dr Ruth Mann is a Senior Turfgrass Pathologist with the STRI and one of Europe’s leading turfgrass plant pathologists. She has a wide range of pathology experience including pathogens that affect cereals, potatoes, oil seed rape and grasses.