Turf Health

The GRASS HEALTH can be related to the quality of the soil, as indicated by the USDA The main reason for this is their biodiversity and sustainability, their ability to function as a living ecosystem. We need to understand our sports surfaces as symbiotic ecosystems that can be managed to provide the necessary inputs for the development of our turf.

One gram of soil contains millions of micro-organisms that live in a specific ecosystem, which provides the roots of our lawns with nutrients in a similar way to how our gut flora feeds us. All these microorganisms live organised in communities and how they interact with the roots is the key to understanding them.

We need to understand our sports surfaces as symbiotic ecosystems that can be managed to provide the necessary inputs for the development of our turf.

We can compare the different microbial communities visible under the electron microscope in any plant tissue with satellite images of countries or cities. Microbial communities interact with each other to perform functions that are of interest to our lawns in the same way that humans interact in our cities to perform different activities or products in factories.

The knowledge of all the different species of micro-organisms is what we know as the microbiomeThanks to novel DNA sequencing techniques, it is now possible to determine these genes. The genes obtained give us information on microbial taxonomy and modern artificial intelligence techniques explain the functionality of the microbiome, whether related to plant nutrition, resistance to salinity, heavy metals, or many others.

Traditional petri dish cultures are not very effective in this respect as they would determine less than 1% of the existing diversity.

The diversity of the microbiome positively influences a multitude of functions related to soil nutrient cycling. You can find out more here:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12798-y

Soils are the reservoir of the microbiome, and the richness of the microbiome will be influenced by biotic and abiotic factors. Source here .

https://www.nature.com/articles/nrmicro.2017.87

The different biotic and abiotic factors that have the greatest impact on the formation of bacterial communities are presented below, in decreasing order of importance: the pH > Carbon level > redox potential > VWC% > N and P > Soil texture and structure > Temperature > Varieties

In many cases the health of our sport surfaces will depend on climatic conditions, physical aspects of the soil (infiltration rates, thatch or felt accumulation), nutritional values of the soil, microbiome, etc...

If we manage to have the different parameters "in the right ranges", the effects of these will be minimal or non-existent.

An optimal way to anticipate diseases is to use scientific statistical models based on continuous data from our weather stations for early detection. Thus, for example, for the detection of the dollar the probability of such a disease occurring would be indicated by a warning that is sent to our platform. SpecConnect with the colour red. We also have models that predict the key moments for the appearance of certain insects.

Information is power, but to manage all this flow of information it is necessary to have tools that translate the measured variables into simple warnings to our smart phones. Consult us at soporte@tiloom.com and we will provide you with solutions designed for your specific case.