Prepare Your Turf for Cold Weather

As the growing season ends and days become shorter, focusing on preparing your turfgrass for the cold weather ahead is essential. With less daylight, turfgrass begins a process called hardening off, which helps it build resistance to winter damage and cold temperatures. During this process, the plant stores carbohydrates in its crown and root tissues, increases cell solute concentration, accumulates proteins, and strengthens its cell wall structures. A well-planned nutritional program, like Foliar-Pak’s Fall Foliar Cool Season Program, can significantly enhance these protective processes.

Why Does This Program Work?

Better Photosynthetic Efficiency. Turfgrass plants build carbohydrates through photosynthesis; however, as daylight length and sunlight intensity decrease, the plant has less opportunity to photosynthesize. Foliar-Pak Foundation Forty aids photosynthesis by supplying the specific carbon source turfgrass plants use as the building block for constructing the chlorophyll molecule.

Foliar-Pak Amperage supports photosynthesis by supplying two nutrients with significant responsibilities for improving photosynthetic activity: iron and manganese. Better photosynthesis leads to increased plant carbohydrate production.

Storing/Conserving Carbohydrates. When weather conditions minimize photosynthesis, Amperage comes through by delivering a load of sugars. Turfgrass plants then absorb these sugars and use them to build complex carbohydrates, supplementing what they can build internally. In a harsh winter, every little bit of carbohydrate energy makes a difference in helping the plant survive.

The amino acids in Foundation Forty supply another kicker! They work to improve plant metabolic efficiencies, mainly helping the plant assimilate nitrogen better and build proteins more efficiently.

Helping the plant conserve energy during these processes reduces carbohydrate consumption and increases storage. Foliar-Pak 1-0-15 provides potassium, a vital nutrient that enables turfgrass plants to transport and store carbohydrates for future use efficiently.

Increased Solute Concentration Works as an Antifreeze for Plant Cells. The Foliar-Pak Fall Foliar Cool Season Program increases solute concentration in a few major ways.

• Turfgrass plants use carbohydrates to increase solute concentration. By increasing carbohydrate reserves, as discussed above, one of the fringe benefits for turfgrass plants is this valuable cell solute.
• The amino acids from Foundation Forty are rapidly converted to separate osmolytes and uploaded into the cell vacuoles, which help to regulate cell water status.
• Regulating osmotic relation is one of the main functions of potassium. The Foliar-Pak Fall Foliar Cool Season Program fortifies turfgrass plants with more organic osmolytes (amino acids) and inorganic osmolytes (potassium), as well as carbohydrates, increasing the cells’ solute concentration and making winter freezing and dehydration less likely.

Strengthen Cell Wall Structure.  Foliar-Pak CSi L is an excellent product for strengthening cell wall structure. The silicon in CSi L aids in strengthening cell walls and thickens cuticles, helping maintain the first line of defense against disease infection, winter damage, and traffic stress. Stronger cell walls and cuticles help the plant tolerate traffic and changing weather conditions more successfully.

Foliar-Pak Calcium is optional in the Foliar-Pak Fall Foliar Cool Season Program but can be a great addition. One of the primary functions of calcium in turfgrass plants is to stabilize cell walls and membranes, which makes them stronger and able to handle the stress of fall.

Let Foliar-Pak put your turf to bed properly with a fall program consisting of Foundation Forty, Amperage, 1-0-15, CSi L, and optional Calcium. Apply these products in a tank mix solution at recommended label rates. Spray bi-weekly, anytime beginning early to mid-October, through your snow mold spray. Since our amino acids will enhance the uptake of systemic fungicides and PGRs, you’ll see better performance from them.