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SAN
DIEGO- A control for annual bluegrass, or poa
annua, has been the desire of the golf course
industry for at least half a century. Now it
appears one has arrived, and the bonus is that
it is a natural bacteria.
"If this works as well as
it appears, it's huge [for the industry]. I'm
excited," said Dr. Joe Vargas of Michigan State
University about the bacteria Xanthomonas
campestris. "When I got into this business
in the 1950's we were talking about how to
get rid of Poa annua. Here we are,
40 years later, talking about how to get rid
of Poa and the market is almost nationwide."
Acutely selective, Xanthonomas
campestris kills only Poa annua,
not at all harming bentgrass, ryegrass or Kentucky
bluegrass, and leaving Poa trivialis
barely affected.
"I would parallel it with
new drugs for killing cancer tumors. That's
how important it is to me," said David Major,
a certified golf course superintendent at Del
Mar Country Club in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.,
one of four courses testing the biological.
"Poa is the biggest problem we have
to deal with in the condition of our greens."
Xanthomonas campestris
was first discovered 15 years ago, according
to Vargas. But it wasn't until the advent of
the BioJect technology from Eco Soil Systems,
Inc. of San Diego that it became a viable way
to fight Poa annua , which infests
golf courses from Pebble Beach to Maine. Between
then and now, Michigan State licensed the right
to the bacteria to Mycogen Corp. of San Diego.
Mycogen spent years trying dry formulations,
but found it too expensive, and recently turned
over the license to Eco Soil.
Situated in a golf course's
pump house, the BioJect System actually "brews"
bacteria in a fermentation process, like a
still. The brew then is normally fed to the
golf course through the irrigation system.
Since biological controls usually must be applied
frequently in order to be effective, the advent
of BioJect two years ago has opened new doors
from natural control of diseases and, in this
case, poa annua.
Using this system at Michigan
State, Xanthomonas campestris kills
the Poa and leaves the bentgrass,
said Vargas.
"I'm very excited about it,"
said Major, who is brewing the bacteria in
his BioJect but spraying it only once a week
from a boom sprayer, not through his irrigation
system. "This is my last miracle hope to find
something that will transition out the Poa
and let the bentgrass fill in there Poa
has encroached.
We just started applying
it about two months ago and I started seeing
results in a month."
Vargas said he is recommending
that superintendents start spraying the product
three days a week, then modify the applications
accordingly.
"Once a week may do it, "
he said. "I need to work out a better model.
Right now, for simplicity's sake, I'd say to
apply it when temperatures reach into the 80's."
Major expects the arrival
of warm weather will deliver the killer blow
to the Poa annua, saying that two
days of 80-degree temperatures made a significant
difference. He said that besides the BioJect
and warm weather, the key to Xanthomonas
campestris' effectiveness is wounding,"
or mowing the Poa annua . When the
grass plant is cut, the bacteria enters and
plugs up the tissues that conduct moisture
up and down the plant.
Whether he will, in the end,
apply the bacteria through the irrigation system
has not been decided, Major said. "It may be
more effective to have a fairway-mounted tank
with which you would spray you can water before
dawn,then mow first thing in the morning."
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However
it is applied, most superintendents will have
to wait a year or two to get it. Jeff Johnson,
president of Eco Soil's ESSI Product Division,
said Xanthomonas campestris will "certainly"
be on the market by the year 2000.
The Federal Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) is fast-tracking the
product through the approval process, and is
expected around June to designate it as a biological
fungicide while naming BioJect an application
device.
Eco Soil has asked the EPA
for an expanded Experimental Use Permit (EUP)
for Xanthomonas campestris and expects
approval in July, Johnson said. Until now,
Ironwood Country Club and Bighorn Golf Club
in Palm Desert, Tamarisk Country Club in Rancho
Mirage and Del Mar have been the only golf
courses allowed to use the product. The new
EUP would allow the company to use it on 5,000
acres.
"That translates to 100
courses," Johnson said. There are about 400
BioJect systems in operation domestically and
they have been approved in 12 states: Arizona,
California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois,
Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New
York, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Eco Soil may add states
to this list, said Vice President of Product
Development John Doyle. "Our plan is to get
100 field sites actively involved as soon as
possible," Johnson said. "The results will
be very apparent within the first growing season.
They will either see wilting [of Poa annua]
or not. It will not necessarily kill all their
Poa . It may be a longer-term process
than that."
Thus far, he said, "We're
very encouraged by the results. I can't say
there isn't room for improvement. There have
been several obstacles, and the results have
varied by site. Del Mar showed the most immediate
results." Tamarisk showed the program to be
effective in keeping the population of Poa
in check as compared to control areas
where population levels increased over time.
"We didn't see the wilting
at Tamarisk that we would have liked to have
seen. That was probably a function of not beginning
applications until December. We think it's
most effective when it's applied when Poa
is in its germination stage; so one of
the times we want it applied in California
is in the fall when they're overseeding."
Johnson said Eco Soil will
probably recommend applications during six
to seven months a year in the South, starting
in the overseeding time and proceeding through
spring.
Just how expensive will
poa annua control be with this program?
Eco Soil leases the BioJect
Systems for $6,000 per year. The average annual
cost of the program is between $16,000 and
$20,000 because of a monthly charge for the
course's biological program.
"We're trying to be realistic
and not raise the expectations in the marketplace
through the roof," said Doyle. "There is no
silver bullet, but this definitely shows efficacy
in the field trials. So we're optimistic."
"This obviously is a huge
opportunity for us and we're devoting a lot
of resources to it," Johnson added.
No one in the business would
argue that a control for Poa annua
is a revolutionary development.
And Johnson even hinted
that another great advancement lies over the
horizon: a control for perennial annual bluegrass.
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