The Use of Nutramax Products in a Program
Doug Petersan Austin Golf Club, Austin, Texas
Using Nutramax L-amino acid based products in a maintenance program has proved very beneficial for us. We use some of these products almost every time an application is made. When we apply products that require watering, such as wetting agents or insecticides, we add Macro-Sorb® Radicular to our spray mix. The application rate is usually 4 to 6 oz per 1000 sq ft. When we use a product that will dry on the surface, such as fungicides, plant growth regulators, or herbicides, we add Macro-Sorb®Foliar at 1 to 2 oz per 1000 sq. ft. to our mix which helps with the efficiency of these products. The addition of MacroSorb ®Radicular and Foliar has greatly enhanced the effectiveness of our overall programs.
Like most golf facilities throughout the country, the putting greens are the most intensely managed areas of the golf course. Golf facility customers/members expect the putting greens to be near perfection at all times. We have found that the addition of Nutramax L-amino acid products allow us to reduce our Nitrogen input in our maintenance programs without reducing the health or quality of our putting surfaces. This allows us to develop faster putting speeds that last all day without sacrificing turf health. Since we have incorporated these products into our programs, the health of our greens, i.e., color, root development, and density, has been much improved while still maintaining fast true putting speeds >10 ft. We have applied less than 2 lbs. of Nitrogen per year on bentgrass greens at Austin Golf Club for the past four years without any reduction in turf health or density.
We use Macro-Sorb® Foliar with all of our foliar applications. On our Zoysia fairways, we apply Heritage at the 1 oz rate along with 1.5 oz of Foliar once a year for Zoysia patch. In the past two years, we have had outstanding control of this disease with this program. We not only are getting better control, but we have saved many thousands of dollars. We use Foliar when applying any fungicides that we allow to dry on the surface to enhance the effectiveness of these products. When applying Drive herbicide in our native areas for the control of weeds, we always add 1.5 oz of Foliar, which is working very well. When spraying any of the 3-way herbicides, we normally reduce the rate by 50% and add 2 quarts of Foliar per acre. We also use Foliar any time we are applying a plant growth regulator such as Primo to enhance the effectiveness of these products.
Macro-Sorb® Radicular is a very good product to use with products that are watered in such as wetting agents, insecticides, and fungicides that are root absorbed. We find that this product really helps our turf respond more favorably to these applications. We also use Radicular when aerating to help reduce stress and speed up root development to shorten the recovery period. Because we apply Nutramax products on a regular basis, our turf seems to suffer less and recover faster during periods of extreme stress, i.e., heat, cold, traffic, etc.; which is one ofthe main benefits we have seen using these products.
The Nutramax product line also includes Quelant®Ca, Quelant®K low Ph, Quelant® Minors, and Quelant® Amino Green which corrects nutrient deficiencies within the plant. I do not feel we could maintain the quality surfaces we do without adding L-amino acids from Nutramax products in almost every application.