ProGro Solutions is now Advanced Turf Solutions

In the coming months, ProGro Solutions will change its name to Advanced Turf Solutions.

In 2016, ProGro Solutions and Advanced Turf Solutions (ATS) officially joined forces as an employee-owned green industry distributor with a deep commitment to quality and service. By operating under the Advanced Turf Solutions name, we can provide our customers with more access to digital resources and the entire ATS network of green industry experts.

You’ll see new signs on our buildings and logos on our shirts; however, the friendly faces of your agronomic consultant, delivery driver, and customer service team will remain the same. Customer service operations will continue at our regional office in Mendota, IL, and the support staff and business operations in Elk Grove Village, IL and Madison, WI will be unchanged.

To connect with us and explore our variety of digital resources, follow us on Twitter @AdvancedTurf and @ATSSportsTurf, Facebook @AdvancedTurf, and Instagram @advancedturf. Look for our new website coming soon at www.advancedturf.com.

Stay tuned for regional events to celebrate our new name!

Best Management Practices from FMC: Deer Tick

Keep safe from deer ticks with this great information from FMC. 

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Foliar-Pak's Custom Lawn Program

Stack your customer's turf defense against drought, heat and disease pressure with this comprehensive fertility bionutrient program.Turf will be healthier and stronger and you'll hear fewer complaints. 

• Promotes controlled growth and long-lasting color

• Increases nutrient uptake and ensures predictable nutrient availability

• Unlocks the tied-up nutrients that already exist in the soil, turning them into plant usable nutrition

• Provides stronger defense against drought, heat, and disease pressure

• Apply this program at each round.

Download here

Keep Heat Tracking Damage Off Your Lawn

Heat tracking damage on lawns

Recently, I have received quite a few calls and pictures from customers inquiring about tracks in the turf that appear dead and if the damage was caused by mowing or a fertilizer application. Typically, fertilizer does not cause the issue. It’s the equipment used to apply the fertilizer or the mowers used to cut the grass that creates the problem. The damage occurs when the turf is starting to wilt, and traffic is put on it. Anything you drive over the turf when it is wilting will cause heat track damage.

The condition of the turf is the primary key to the cause of the tracks forming. When a lawn is entering drought stress, it may still be green, but the stress is already starting. The weight of the machine riding over the lawn bends and breaks the leaf blade. The leaf blade is no longer able to stay green, and it turns brown as it dies off.

Avoid damage by mowing or fertilizing in the cooler part of the day or move the application or mowing to a later date. The good news is the grass blade is just damaged, and the grass plant is not dead. The turf should recover in about two weeks.

Heat tracking damage can also cause diseases to spread in the turf.

The picture below is a lawn showing drought stress and leaf blight. Ascochyta leaf spot symptoms develop during hot, dry periods. The disease can look like large, irregular patches of straw-covered grass and appear dead. It can easily spread after mowing or fertilizer applications.

The cut grass and damage from the tires on the drought stressed turf makes it easier for the disease to spread. Luckily, the crowns and roots of the turfgrass are not affected and should recover in 2 or 3 weeks with cooler temperatures and rainfall.

You can help manage leaf blight damage by following a few cultural practices. A yearly aeration program will help reduce thatch and improve water penetration. Mowing at or above 3” and mowing less frequently will also help. Try to stay off turfgrass when it shows signs of drought stress and wilt. The easiest way to determine whether or not turf is wilting is to walk across it. If you notice that your footprints don't bounce back right away, this shows the plant is under drought stress.

Turf Tip

"With all the rain lately, it's important to understand how that will affect your pre-emergents. Standing water and over saturated soils have the ability to cut the half life of your weed pre-emergents dramatically. This means, if breakthrough occurs, it is possibly a result of the current weather pattern as opposed to product failure. As always, if you have product concerns, feel free to reach out to your ProGro rep for help with the situation."

Scott Verdun
ProGro Operations and Sales Support

Dog Days of Summer

As Independence Day quickly approaches, it will not be long until the muggy, hot and hazy "dog days of summer" are upon us. Most of my customers consider July 4th to be the "hump day" of the season. Even though the days are starting to get a little shorter, summer always seems to really kick in about then as well. Luckily, ProGro Solutions offers our customers a wide variety of product choices when the "heat is on!"

Our best selling products, ArmorTech® 44 and Nutrol®, are a great combination when conditions are rip for Pythium. We also carry Lexicon® Intrinsic® Brand Fungicide from BASF®, which is a great combination of Insigna® and the new Xzemplar® for a great holiday spray! Finally, if you are in need of quicker green speeds during these humid and lush growing days, we have two great products to tag team with. Musketeer from Sepro®, will give you consistent growth and green speed readings during the peak of tournament time for most courses. If you need even more green speed, you can turn to our new CSi™ silicon product from Foliar-Pak®. CSi will get the turf to "stand attention" during the holiday season and also help prevent wilt with stronger cell walls. As you can see, ProGro Solutions has all you need to get through the "dog days of summer" this season! 

Mike Werth

ProGro Solutions Sales Representative

Aqueduct - Here, There, and Everywhere

There are seemingly endless choices of soil surfactant (wetting agent) products these days.  To complicate matters, some products have less than 20% active ingredient and are applied in ounces per acre, while other products contain 100% active ingredient and are applied in ounces per 1,000 square feet.  There are some soil surfactant products that need to be applied early in the spring and then every few weeks or monthly throughout the growing season on a preventative, program basis, while other soil surfactant products can be used curatively after water repellency symptoms appear. Some soil surfactant products are described as “penetrants” while other are claimed to be “water holders”. Many soil surfactant products can be phytotoxic and need to be irrigated off of leaf surfaces immediately after application, while others are non-phytotoxic and can be left to dry on leaf surfaces after application and can be watered in the night after application. Is your head spinning yet?

There is no doubt that all of these choices can be very confusing. Now that we are in June, when heat and moisture stress usually kicks in big time, I’d like to simplify things for you. With all of the soil surfactant products available today, one of the safest, most versatile, and easiest to use is Aqueduct^®, by Aquatrols^®. 

Aqueduct Basics

Aqueduct is known as the best curative soil surfactant on the market today for the treatment of localized dry spot (LDS) on turfgrass.  But it also has a variety of other uses in turfgrass management and landscape management as well.  It comes in a liquid formulation if you prefer to spray, and in a water dispersible, granular formulation (Aqueduct^®SWDG^®) if you prefer to spread or spot treat with a granular. Aqueduct is non-phytotoxic, so it can be applied on even the hottest day and it does not have to be watered in immediately to prevent tip burn or yellowing, so you can have peace of mind knowing you are fixing problems and not creating new ones.    

Turfgrass Uses

To curatively treat existing LDS or extreme moisture stress on golf course, athletic field or lawn turf: Apply 8 oz/M of Aqueduct liquid or 2.5 lbs/M of Aqueduct SWDG to affected turf. After initial watering in, apply additional water with a hose to bring soil moisture back up to field capacity. 

Left: Localized dry spot (LDS) on a golf course fairway in Ohio before being treated with Aqueduct. Right: Turf recovery one week after an Aqueduct application. LDS symptoms are almost completely gone.

To preventatively treat water repellency in any turf soil: Apply 3-4 oz/M Aqueduct liquid every two weeks or 2.5 lbs/M of Aqueduct SWDG monthly.  Water it in thoroughly the evening after application, or sooner if possible. 

On newly laid sod:  Apply 2.5 lbs/M of Aqueduct SWDG over the top of newly laid sod prior to initial watering of the sod. Aqueduct SWDG will treat the water repellency in the thatch/mat layer and soil of the cut sod reducing watering requirements during establishment. It will also improve “knitting in” of new roots into the underlying soil at the sod/soil interface.

Apply Aqueduct SWDG over the top of newly laid sod with a rotary spreader prior to initial watering of the sod to reduce watering requirements during establishment and improve "knitting in" with the underlying soil.

Landscape Uses

For mulched tree, shrub or flower beds: Apply 8 oz/M of Aqueduct liquid or 2.5 lbs/M of Aqueduct SWDG monthly. Organic mulches like wood chips, cocoa hulls, bark and compost become very water repellent when they dry out.  Aqueduct treats the water repellency in organic mulches, improving water penetration and increasing soil moisture in mulched bed.

For pots, hanging baskets or planter boxes: Apply ½ teaspoon of Aqueduct SWDG monthly to the surface of each 12” diameter pot or hanging basket, or each square foot of planter boxes. The soilless media used in pots, hanging baskets and planter boxes contains a lot of peat moss, which becomes very water repellent when it dries out. Aqueduct SWDG will treat the water repellency in the soilless media and make it wettable again. This allows more of the soilless media in these containers to wet up after each watering, and less water will run down the sides of the containers and out the bottom drainage holes. The containers will not dry out as fast and these containers will not have to be watered quite as often.

Aqueduct SWDG applied monthly to pots, hanging baskets or planter boxes will increase the wettability of the soilless media used in these containers, so they will not dry out as fast and they won't have to be watered as often.

Soil water repellency is a significant problem for turfgrass and landscape managers, especially in the heat of summer during dry conditions. Aqueduct liquid and Aqueduct SWDG granular can help treat soil water repellency in almost every turfgrass and landscape situation, increasing watering efficiency and reducing wasted time and water.

The Benefits of Seaweed Extracts and Humic Acids

Seaweed extracts  and humic acids are far from the novel tools that they were 20 years ago. Many turf managers and crop growers know firsthand the benefits that they can provide. Over the last 15 or 20 years, researchers have documented these benefits, especially as they relate to stress tolerance and better recovery from stress.

Even though we are much more aware of the benefits than we were years ago, the reasons for better plant activity are difficult to pinpoint. We can speculate that improved plant health is the result of exogenous additions of cytokinins, auxins, polyamines, or betaines. Maybe it’s the sugar-like compounds, such as mannitol.  Some even speculate that better health results from the many minerals that are found in seaweed extracts and humic acids.  For the turf manager, it probably makes sense to focus on the "what" instead of the "why.” 

Fortunately, modern science has been up to the task and has been able to explain the tangible benefits related to applications of seaweed extracts and humic acids. Here are some of the advantages that have been identified in various unbiased research studies:

• The production of superoxide dismutase, a plant made (endogenous) anti-oxidant, was increased with the regular applications of seaweed extracts and humic acids. 
• Photochemical activity, basically a measurement of active chlorophyll, is also enhanced. 
• Visual quality is improved for turf.
• Some studies demonstrate better rooting.
• Other studies demonstrate seaweed extracts and humic acids improve heat, drought or salt tolerance.
• And occasionally researchers showed that these biostimulant applications result in less disease incidence. 

There is one other very interesting trend, which has been exposed from the many studies that have been conducted on turfgrass as well as many other plant subjects. Humic acids and seaweed extracts applications applied separately have resulted in positive plant responses. However, when they are applied in combination, results are significantly improved over either of the treatments alone.

Foliar-Pak® Promote, formulated with generous levels of both seaweed extracts and humic acids, takes advantage of the combined effects of these two carbon sources. This combination, as well as the surfactant, complex sugars, and other additives in Promote, combine to make it the premier bio-nutrient product for plant health, rooting and stress reduction.

Promote is a foundation product in Foliar-Pak programs, providing great stress protection in summer and improved rooting in spring and autumn.

Curt Geron
Guest Blogger
Director of Sales, EnP Investments, LLC