Trial Fertiliser

We will be trialling a new liquid fertiliser product for fairways this season. By using liquid rather than soluble fertilisers as we have done in the past to supplement the granular fertiliser applications, we will be able to reduce the time taken for refill as we won’t have to dissolve the fertiliser at mixing. This can take anywhere between 30 minutes to 45 minutes depending on the product used before heading out to continue applying the fertiliser.

With only a 600L boom we generally have to refill 6 times to complete the Fairway areas only. This then means we have to spread the application out over 3 mornings as we don’t want to be spraying in the heat of the day or disrupt play.

Unlike the soluble products where we need to mix with water and spray the mixture at 300L per hectare due to having to dilute the product, the liquid alternative only requires a maximum 20 to 30L of water per hectare. Therefore, not only do we save time with not having to dissolve the fertiliser at filling, we can also cover more area with 1 tank load, i.e. we can cover all the fairways with 2 tanks.

We will evaluate the trial by recording growth response, Colour response and longevity of the product after application. The cost comparison per application and labour time will also influence the outcome to continue.
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Why use a foliar type fertiliser? By applying foliar fertilisers we can avoid surge growth which is not beneficial to turf, builds thatch and can lead to leaching. If the trial proves effective we will be able to apply smaller amounts of nutrients regularly, for balanced sustainable growth.
 Foliar fertilisers do not require watering in, with the back 9 still on manual irrigation, it can take 3 days to water the fairways.

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