Producing 'greener' high-value sports turf through soil microbial management

总体目标是减少草坪对农药和化肥的依赖，并在英国创造“绿色”，可持续的高品质草坪。我们的主要目标是确定运动场草坪土壤微生物的最佳管理方法。我们将对运动场草坪土壤进行采样，提取有益微生物，并在CASE合作伙伴的实验室中进行培养，然后研究如何将其应用于运动场草坪，以改善草坪状况。我们有4个相关的工作包，旨在回答以下问题：1.运动场草坪的集约化管理是否会损害土壤微生物群落？对一系列运动草坪土壤进行取样将使我们能够了解可以在那里生活的微生物群落。添加杀菌剂和肥料会减少菌根真菌的数量吗？我们必须确定可以与农药施用一起存在的微生物，以便将两者结合起来。土壤微生物群落资源有限吗？向土壤中添加碳可以喂养微生物，并可能克服割草的限制。如何以可持续的方式将菌根和土壤细菌添加到草坪中？一系列的田间试验将试图确定合适的微生物，可以配制成商业产品。

The overall aim is to reduce the reliance of turf on pesticides and fertilizers and to create 'greener', sustainable high quality turf in the UK. Our main objective is to determine the optimum management methods for soil microbes in sports turf. We will sample sports turf soils, extract the beneficial microbes and culture them in the CASE partner's laboratory.We will then examine how these can be formulated to be applied to sports turf, so as to improve turf condition.There are 4 linked work packages, which aim to answer the following questions:1. Is the soil microbial community compromised by the intensive management regime on sports turf?Sampling a range of sports turf soils will enable us too characterise the communities of microbes that can live there.2. Does the addition fungicides and fertilizers reduce populations of mycorrhizal fungi?We have to identify the microbes that can exist with pesticide application so the two can be integrated.3. Is the soil microbial community resource-limited?Adding carbon to the soilwill feed the microbes and possibly overcome the limitation due to mowing.4. How can mycorrhizas and soil bacteria be added to turf in a sustainable manner?A series of field trials will try to identify appropriate microbes that could be formulated into a commercial product.