Yet another fungus being developed to combat weeds in turf
6 Jul, 2011 Landscape Management
Is it possible to use a plant disease to kill broadleaf weeds on home lawns? Scotts MiracleGro Company apparently thinks so.
The huge lawn care giant, headquartered in Marysville, OH, has acquired the license for a product whose killing agent is the fungus Phoma macrostoma. The granular product reportedly attacks dandelions and other weeds but leaves grass alone.
An article in the London (Ontario) Free Press says the biopesticide could be commercially produced and brought to market in two years. Much of Canada, of course, has banned the use of traditional chemical lawn pesticides, which has seriously damaged the lawn care market there — the commercial and the retail market.
The fungus has been known and the subject of research since the 1980s because it naturally infects Canada thistle, causing plants to turn white. Without chlorophyll, the plants die. Scientists with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) successfully isolated and purified the fungus from plants growing in Saskatchewan and other provinces. They then developed a solid-state fermentation process to formulate the product as a granule.
Phoma macrostoma reduces the broadleaved weed species when its broadcast on turf, but it does not harm the grass. Once in the soil, the fungus enters the roots and then it grows towards the plant’s vascular system, says the AAFC. The granular fungus product has activity up to about two months then starts to decline.
In addition to thistles, the fungus has been found to kill clover, chickweed and ragweed.
This is not the first fungus weed control developed and marketed to the beleaguered Canadian lawn care market. Sarritor, a product relying upon the Sclerotinia minor fungus and technology developed by Dr. Alan Watson of McGill University, received government approval in 2007 as a control for dandelions and other broadleaf weeds in turf.
Please send any technical comments or questions to our webmaster.