Last year we started delivering a new service to our clients called the Disease Prevention Package. This was offered to four separate golf clubs based in the UK (2) and in mainland Europe (2). The aim of this service was to see if more frequent analysis of the soil from a biological and chemical perspective could actually help to improve our understanding of the growing conditions and to see if this would actually lead to any financial benefits in the long term.
We suspected that this service held serious potential but did not expect the results to be as impressive as they were…
As you’ll see from the attached report, this service definitely shows that by undertaking regular analysis of the soil and plant throughout the year (from a biological and chemical perspective) and by receiving regular impartial agronomic feedback that this gives the Course Manager a reliable and trustworthy tool that can be used to help them to reduce both fertiliser and pesticide usage.
The cost benefits of reducing the amount of pesticide and the amount of fertiliser applied to the greens more than paid for this service and also started to see significant changes in the biological condition of the soil.