Non target fungicide effects - are you just creating more problems down the road?
It is increasingly commonplace in the turf industry for Managers to try and do the right thing in relation to monitoring the environmental impact and using lower risk inputs, whether these be for example fungicides or fertilizers . Gone are the days of the mercuric fungicides! This is an admirable approach but a major issue is that there is little by way of good information on the non - target impact of preventative (or curative for that matter) programmes. Spraying to manage one disease can in fact encourage other diseases. In 1995 Eric Nelson discussed the non-target effects of fungicides in depth. The actual manner in which this disease enhancement occurs depends on the specific environment in which applications are made. The main reason this occur s is that by spraying to deal with a fungal pathogen, you in turn cause a reduction in competition from other non-p athogenic antagonistic microbes. This reduction leads other pathogenic species to proliferate and be