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NJNLA Member Meeting Pantano Nursery & Landscape Supply November 12, 2024
Agenda This meeting is FREE and open to both NJNLA members and non-members. Hope to see you there! CREDITS APPROVED: NJ Pest Credits: CORE-2, 1A-2, 3B-2, 8C-2, PP2-2 ProFACT - 1, NJUCF - 1, LTE/LTCO - 1, CNLP: 1 Environment, 1 Professional, ISA: Certified Arborist: 1 - BCMA - Science: 1
4:30pm Arrive | Check-in 4:30pm to 5:30pm Optional Pantano Tour | Dinner 5:30pm to 6:30pm Speaker: Paver Pete from Techo-Bloc Title of Talk: ‘Go for the Gap’ Description: Winning the Landscape/ Hardscape Championship How: Faith Mission/Vision Sponsors Team Technology …can help you win! Credits to Self-Report: ICPI- 2, NCMA (National Contract Management Association)- 1 Certificates will be issued 6:30pm to 7:30pm Speaker: Mike Reed, Synatek Solutions “Reducing Your Impact on the Environment Using EIQ and Soil Building” (See information about talk below)
Credits Applied for: NJ Pesticide, ProFACT, ISA, LTE/LTCO, NJUCF, CNLP 7:30pm to 8pm Q&A, Wrap Up Reducing Your Impact on the environment Using EIQ and Soil Building Pesticides have been around since about 2481 BCE. Synthetic pesticides arrived in 1940, but it wasn’t until the book, Silent Spring was published in 1962 that pesticide awareness began. And Mike Reed wants you to be aware and knowledgeable. Reed, Director of Technical Sales and Education for SynaTek Solutions, Inc. and a speaker at the 2022 Turf Education Day, travels the country spreading the word that you can reduce your impact on the environment and successfully grow turf grass at the same time. Using healthier methods can benefit the turf, the environment long term, your employees and you. “We need to start thinking of ourselves as environmentalists,” he says. Unlike when he first researched this issue, there now are online tools to help you through the process. These include: - The USGS National Water Quality Assessment
- The University of Wisconsin: turfpests.wisc.edu, co-sponsored by the Wisconsin Chapter of the GCSAA (Golf Course Superintendents Association of America) and the Wisconsin Turfgrass Association. This site allows you to enter the name of the product you want to use, then provides information to determine the efficacy by pest.
- Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ), Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (https://turf.cals.cornell.edu/pests-and-weeds/environmental-impact-quotient-eiq-explained/). This site provides criteria you can combine with your knowledge of the efficacy, cost and resistance management to choose a pesticide product that satisfies all requirements. It provides an EIQ-FUR (environmental impact quotient-field use rating). The lower the score, the lower the environmental impact.
Reed points to three prerequisites to use when choosing pesticide and fertilizer products: efficacy and economics, as well as environmental and health impact. “You want to choose a pesticide that is less toxic to the environment, the consumer and the applicators,” he says. Toxicity to the applicator covers both acute and chronic toxicity, while effect on consumers includes food residues, leachability to ground water and chronic toxicity from long term and regular exposure. All are connected, usually through the effect on the environment, for instance leaching into ground water, consequences for fish or bees (which are pollinators of plants that grow many of our foods) and other areas. For instance, years ago, before DDT was outlawed in the United States (1972), scientists found that eagle eggs suddenly had thinner and more fragile shells, which resulted in fewer eagle chicks surviving. That, in turn, meant the eagle population was diminishing, which then meant there was nothing to keep their prey in check, which affected other areas all up and down the food chain. Once DDT was out of the picture, the eagle population gradually recovered. The Cornell website looks at every piece of the puzzle and “comes up with a score,” he says. “The closer to zero, the better.” The idea is to use the least toxic, but still effective, options. That, however, requires some advance planning and patience. Reed points to a regenerative turf program and soil building to take carbon out of the soil. “For me, the number one focus is on the environment, environment, environment,” he says. “How will it impact the environment, the consumer and to make sure that it will have a positive effect with the least amount of negative effect on the environment. We can do this with mainstream products that every distributor can sell.” Some products are easier to rate than others, however. Weeds for instance. “We spray them and count how many die,” says Reed. Grubs are more difficult because they are underground. “Part of it is picking the products that are going to do a good job and have low environmental impact.” In looking at fertilizer, Reed believes it is important to understand the products’ characteristics and, especially, understand what it means to the environment. In the case of fertilizer, solubility – the measure of the ability of a fertilizer or pesticide to dissolve in a solvent, usually water. The higher the solubility, the more leaching and runoff potential. To reduce potential runoff, leaching and volatilization (conversion of a liquid chemical into a gas, which escapes into the atmosphere), Reed recommends using controlled release nitrogen sources. These include urea, sulfur coated urea and polymer coated nitrogen. A few definitions: - Biostimulants – the Farm Bill passed in 2018 defines biostimulants as “a substance or microorganism that, when applied to seeds, plants or the rhizosphere, stimulates natural processes to enhance or benefit nutrient uptake, nutrient use efficiency, tolerance to abiotic stress, or crop quality and yield.” They are not classified as fertilizers.
- Traditional synthetic fertilizers – chemical compounds that are designed to directly feed the plants
- Prebiotics – compounds used to feed the soil biology, which, in turn feeds the plants/turf. This is part of the soil food web, which is composed of organisms living in the soil.
- Soil Health Score – this is a measure of the soil’s ability to support life. A low score – one or two – means that the grass is depleted and the plants will struggle and not be able to function as they should, says Reed.
Some European countries are using biostimulants, which some experts claim reduce the need for fertilizers and pesticides, while continuing to get good crop results. That includes turf grass. “When you improve the soil, it is better able to hold onto nutrients and moisture,” says Reed. He notes that he sees nicer lawns in older neighborhoods, because the lawns have topsoil that has been built up over the years. Thus, this topsoil is better able to hold onto moisture and nutrients, which, in turn, increases its ability to nurture grass and other plants. “Once you have improved the soil, you can potentially stop using synthetics and move over to 100 percent organic products,” he says. Moving from traditional chemical fertilizers and pesticides to using prebiotics to buildup soil, so that it has a higher Soil Health Score and can better support plant life, is not something that happens overnight. “It’s a process,” says Reed. “It’s going to take some time to build a program to improve the lawn’s ability to take carbon out of the atmosphere.” Turf, Reed notes, does a much better job of sequestering carbon from the atmosphere than trees. More information is available at the University of Guelph’s carbon capture project (https://www.uoguelph.ca/carboncapture/). Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that helps trap heat in the atmosphere. The right amount is instrumental in keeping the earth’s temperature at the appropriate level. Too much, however, causes the average global temperature to rise and is, say scientists, the cause of the current climate crisis. Reed emphasizes that it takes time to build up the soil and change the way you grow your grass. “Turfgrass hates change,” he says. So do people (remove) Suggested replace,Turfgrass manager dislike change, they believe if it isn’t broke why fix it. “It’s an uphill battle.” Legislation, however, will force that change on a state-by-state basis. “I think legislation is going to be the wake-up call, but we should be able to self-regulate.”
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