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Part of the management of a golf course involves using pesticides. Unfortunately this is the part that makes golf courses unpopular for some people who believes that pesticides are the reason that a golf course is bad for the environment. I believe that many things, in the wrong hands or in the hands of people who do not know how to use it – can be disruptive to the environment and not just pesticide. It should alwasy be done by someone who knows what he/she is doing. You should know some basics about pesticides too.

Pesticides are substances – which usually are chemicals but also include some biological agents like viruses or bacterias – used against pests. What are pests? By definition, pests are living organisms like weeds, insects, fungus, birds, mammals, etc that has characteristics which are unwanted or causes injury to humans or our possessions.

Types of Pesticides

A Short History of Pesticides

A quick check on the Internet reveals that humans have been using pesticides to protect their crops since 500 BC. The first known pesticide was sulfur, and it is still being used today as defense against snakes. By the 15^th century, toxic chemicals such as arsenic, mercury and lead were being applied to crops to kill pests. These were sold in local pharmacies of that time to kill all kind of animals, including household pests like rats and the occasional cheating husband. They are NOT sold to the public anymore nowadays so lets not get too worried.

In the 17^th century, nicotine sulfate was extracted from tobacco leaves for use as an insecticide in France – I wonder how smokers can live with that thought. Insecticides should not be the poison a smoker need to worry about – they're smoking one! In the 19^th century pyrethrum from chrysanthemums and rotenone from tropical vegetables were also used as pesticides. In fact, it is said that Marco Polo brought pyrethrum from the east as a compound of secret origin. Soap was also introduced as an insecticide around this time.

It wasn't until the 20^th century that the use of pesticides expanded especially for use in the agricultural sector with the (now) common household pesticides following not far behind. Many of the things we will cover in this article are as relevant for household pesticides as much as for the commercially massed-produced products.

The three main pesticides I would like to discuss about would be herbicides, fungicides and insecticides but I will concentrate more on herbicides,  I will continue with insecticides and fungicides in another article.

Active Ingredient

A bottle of pesticide is usually called by its 'trade name' which is its brand name that is used exclusively by one manufacturer for a product. There may be several trade names for a single product. People don't usually use trade names or brand names to identify a product because it can be confusing. Instead we should rely on the 'active ingredients' which must be stated on the label of all legal pesticides all over the world. The active ingredient (a.i.) is the material in the pesticide formulation that actually destroys the pests.

Inert ingredients are all materials in the pesticide formulation other than the active ingredient. These ingredients do not work to control the pest, but help dissolve the active ingredient or sometimes improve the pesticide. Some inert ingredients may be hazardous to humans or the environment. Sometimes it is the inert ingredients that contribute to the smell or colour of the pesticide.

At home, you can read about both of these ingredients on your can of insecticides except maybe it would read as 'bahan aktif' and 'bahan lengai'.

Classes of pesticides

In Malaysia the Pesticide Act of 1974 vested the Pesticide Board, which comes under the Crop Protection Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture with powers to control and regulate the pesticide industry and trade in Malaysia.

All pesticides in Malaysia are categorized under different classes of poison. There are five classes of poison in Malaysia, from the extremely poisonous Class 1A, Class 1B to the least poisonous Class IV. Please note that I said 'least' poisonous and not 'non' poisonous. These classes can be identified by a colour band at the bottom of the bottle, box or can. Even the ubiquitous household mosquito or cockroach spray at your home will have a band at the bottom of the can. See if you noticethat the spray-can used to kill cockroaches are in Class III while the can of insecticides for mosquitoes are in Class IV.

In Malaysian golf courses, most pesticides would fall under Class IV with some fungicide in Class III. If your golf course uses Paraquat, I think that would be in Class 1B.

Herbicides

There are herbicides and there are herbicides and then there are some more herbicides. There are different ways of classifying them. They can be classified according to activity, use, mode of action, or type of weeds controlled

By activity: the herbicide is either a contact or systemic herbicide – a contact herbicide kills part of the plant it touches but is not translocated to other parts of the plant. Which means the roots still lives. Which means it's just a matter of time before the weed will grow back again. A systemic herbicide in the right dose applied by trained personnel will travel up and down a plant and kill much more of it.

By use: the herbicide is applied either as a post-emergent or a pre-emergent. A pre-emergent herbicide is applied to the soil before the grass is planted and prevents germination or early growth of weed seeds. A post-emergent herbicide is of course applied after the grass is planted and is the most common type of herbicide used.

By mode of action: indicates the first enzyme, protein, or biochemical step affected in the plant following application. The main mechanisms of action are:
 

By type of weeds controlled: for control purposes, weeds can be divided into three types: broadleaf weeds, grass weeds and sedges. Some herbicides, with their mode of action (or MOA) will only kill a type of weed unless of course the dosage is wrongly calculated.

Now, most herbicides used are mostly the selective type. There are also herbicides used that would kill almost all plants that it comes in contact with, these are called non-selective an example would be Paraquat. Now that is a herbicide to watch. At high dose, it would kill anything (or anyone) that messes around with it. Did you know that it was intentionally made to smell and taste bad? At least thats what I was told. At one point, it was banned in Malaysia or going to be be banned. Or was it already banned? Or banned and unbanned? I have not used it for more than 10 years now so I don't really know.

Some selective herbicides control grass weeds with no activity towards broadleaf plants. These herbicides can be used to control grass weeds in some flower beds; but these are the kind of things you should leave to the professionals and not do at home. There are also some herbicides that control broadleaf weeds and not harm grasses. And yet there are some very limited herbicides that would kill or harm sedges but not grasses. Technology has advanced now that there are selective herbicides that can kill some grass weeds but yet do little harm on other grasses. On the other hand, some golf courses planted with Seashore Paspalum are known to use salt water or sea water as herbicide! How's that for ingenuity?

The rest of this article can be read in January 2007's issue of ParGolf...
 

References.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesticides

http://www.pesticide.org/factsheets.html

http://www.geocities.com/gohhanpin/pesticidesright.htm

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/WATER/U/label.html

http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Pesticide.html

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-061.htm

http://www.p2pays.org/ref/06/05572.htm

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