By Ken Quandt, Regional
Sales Manager
When I visit with
professional turf managers I ask them if they have ever tried using Nature
Safe. On occasion they respond, “Oh yeah I tried it once and I
didn’t see much in the way of response or improvement.” When
questioned further, they normally tell me that they made one or two
applications of Nature Safe without seeing any major improvements in their turf
and then returned to their synthetic products. What they didn’t
understand, and possibly what no one explained to them, is that most of the
benefits derived from using Nature Safe are cumulative in nature.
When a 100% organic Nature
Safe product is applied to the turf, what you are applying is a rich food
source for the soil microbes. The
soil microbes consume the energy in Nature Safe and proceed to build their
populations rapidly. These microbes have life cycles of as short as 20 minutes.
When they begin to die off, the decomposition of their bodies releases
nutrients in the form that plants can use. It normally takes about 30 days for
the microbes to consume all of the energy from an application of Nature Safe,
but at the end of that 30-day period, the beneficial soil microbe population
will be maximized. If no more Nature Safe is applied, the microbes will proceed
to die off and they will be pretty well gone by the end of the next 30 days.
However, if a second application is made at the end of the first 30 days, the
microbe populations will continue to grow and expand to new maximum levels. Each
succeeding application pushes the beneficial soil microbe levels higher and
higher.
While the dead soil microbes
provide the fertility to the plant, the living soil microbes provide most of
the other benefits that are derived from a Nature Safe program. They do things
like:
§ Compete with and suppress pathogenic organisms that
prey on the plant.
§ Compete with the organisms that cause localized dry
spot, thus reducing the problem.
§ Produce increased levels of carbon dioxide that the
plant uses in the photosynthetic process.
§ Flocculate the soil and cement the soil particles
together to create a soil structure.
§ Break down and decompose thatch.
§ Provide thicker and denser rooting by competing with
the pathogenic organisms in the soil, such as nematodes, that normally keep the
root systems from developing to their fullest possible extent.
Most of these benefits can
be realized in one or two seasons. Processes such as building soil structure
will hardly be noticeable from the first application or two of Nature Safe.
Therefore, you will always benefit from a Nature Safe application, especially
during aeration, to maximize its effectiveness. Monthly applications will
deliver tremendous results that differentiate you from the competition.