Trond Olav Pettersen
Senior Engineer
(+47) 406 22 903
trond.pettersen@nibio.no
Place
Landvik
Visiting address
Reddalsveien 215, 4886 Grimstad
Authors
Trygve S. Aamlid Anne Friederike Borchert Karin Juul Hesselsøe Iris Eik Paula Izabella Lawicka Trond Olav PettersenAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Karin Juul Hesselsøe Anne Friederike Borchert Trond Olav Pettersen Atle Beisland Kristine Sundsdal Victoria Stornes Moen Erik Lysøe Monica Skogen Carl Frisk Tatsiana Espevig Christian Spring Mark Ferguson Matthew Clark Liam Hargreaves Martin Nilsson Wolfgang Prämaßing Lukas Borrink Daniel R. Hunt Julian Siebert Axel Städler Yuri Lebedin Valentina Maygurova Anna Antropova Tatiana Gagkaeva Marina Usoltseva Kate Entwistle Sabine Braitmaier Carlos Guerrero Ingeborg M. Hokkanen Heikki HokkanenAbstract
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) refers to the integration of all available techniques for control of diseases, harmful insects and weeds and keep the use of pesticides to levels that are economically justified and environmentally sustainable (FAO, 2016). In compliance with regulations 2009/128/EU and 2009/1107/EU, the five Nordic countries, UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal and Italy have all imposed strict regulations on pesticide use (STERF, 2016). In this context, a main challenge for golf courses is to secure high-quality playing conditions for current and future generations while at the same time reducing the dependency on chemical plant protection products. IPM has for many years been one of STERF’s highest research priorities with a focus on: Evaluation and management of turfgrass species, varieties and mixtures to create more disease resistant, stress tolerant and weed-competitive turf (i); Identification and understanding the biology and proliferation of harmful organisms in turf (ii) Safer and more efficient use of pesticides (including reduced risk for surface runoff and leaching to the environment (http://www.sterf.org/sv/projects/project-list?pid=12) (iii). Due to common EU directives, global warming and other reasons, golf courses in other parts of Northern Europe mostly experience the same IPM challenges as in the Nordic countries. This project addresses UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 12, 13 and 15 as described by R&A and STERF in ‘Golf Course Scandinavia 2030’. It is also a direct follow-up of R&A’s GC2030 ‘Action Plans for ‘Golf Course Condition and Playability’ (1) and ‘Resources’ which request projects that identify alternative approaches to pesticide use and discuss their efficacy (2). The overall goal of this project was to investigate cultural practices and new technologies for prevention and control of the two most important and destructive turfgrass diseases on golf course putting greens - microdochium patch and dollar spot, and to get insight on situation and methods for prevention and control of insect pests on golf courses with a minimum use of pesticides in the Nordic countries.
Abstract
On European golf courses, small lightweight robotic mowers have recently been introduced for fairway and rough mowing. In this study, turfgrass quality and the coverage of broadleaf weeds in three cool-season grasses were compared in response to robotic and traditional fairway mowing. Experiments with pure swards of red fescue (Festuca rubra L.), colonial bentgrass (Agrostis capillaris L.), and Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) were carried out at NIBIO Landvik, Norway, to evaluate differences between lightweight robotic mowing and reel mowing. In a mixture of the three species turfgrass quality and the coverage of broadleaf weeds were compared in response to robotic and reel mowing at yearly fertilizer levels from 0 to 120 kg N ha−1. The results showed that both robotic and reel mowing were found to provide high turfgrass quality, while lower coverage of broadleaf weeds (predominantly white clover [Trifolium repens L.]) was found with robotic mowing independent of grass species. In the mixed stand, higher turfgrass quality was found with robotic mowing regardless of N rate, but N rates above 60 kg ha−1 year−1 were necessary to keep the coverage of white clover in fall on an acceptable low level. Our results suggest that robotic mowing can decrease the spread of white clover at a fairway mowing height of 15 mm, but more research is needed to clarify at which mowing heights, mowing frequencies, and fertilizer levels we can get the best competitiveness against broadleaf weeds on fairways with robotic mowing.