Is there an alternative worm treatment to Carbendazim?

There's no getting away from the fact that, as a nation, British gardeners have come to encourage insects and bugs rather than kill them.

For the home owner, having worms in a lawn isn't a major issue as they provide food for birds, foxes and badgers.

However for the serious lawn enthusiast, professional green keeper and groundsman, worms in fine turf are more than an unsightly mess.

Anyone who's ever played golf, bowls, lawn tennis, croquet, football, rugby or hockey (just to name a few) know only too well that worm casts disrupt the playing surface. sticks to one's feet and generally males a mess.

Worm casts make playing ball sports a lottery and take the skill element out of a game.

If you've ever tried putting a golf ball across fine turf where worm casts are present you'll know exactly what I mean.

There's also the potential to damage mowing equipment.

Most professional users and domestic lawn enthusiasts will almost certainly use mowing equipment which is fitted with a roller.

A roller on a mower achieves two things. First it lightly rolls the surface of the turf ensuring any small bumps loose soil and grass is honed down and keeps the surface true so that balls roll properly and without deviation.

A roller also creates stripes. This is generally an aesthetic process. The light and dark stripes are created when a roller passes over the surface causing the grass leaf blades to lean in the direction that the roller is moving. When an operator returns on an adjacent strip the grass is forced to lean in the other direction.

A appearance of light stripe will always be when the grass leans away from you, the dark strip leans toward you. Basically the light and dark stripes are created when the grass reflects or captures light.

Worms casts stick to moving parts of grass machinery causing wear which quickly leads to grass cylinders, rotary and bottom blades to become dull. This in turn leads to bruising of the grass leaf blade rather than a clean cut.

If you notice the surface of your lawn become brown a day or two after cutting the likely cause is blunt blades.

Deterring worms

When I started my greenkeeping career we used to apply dodgy chemicals such as chlordane and Lindane.

After an application of Chlordane, all worms in the top 3-10 centimetres of soil were killed. The chemical was efficiently residual meaning effective treatment lasted many years. Five years of control was not uncommon but regular use of a long period of time meant Chloraane residues are still present in some soils, even though Chlordane has not been used for over thirty years.

Chlordane is a known carcinogenic and was banned in the early 1980s.

I still have visions of our head greenkeeper mixing chlordane in a tank and using a Cushman Truck with sprayer attachment to treat our greens and tees. Very little personal protective equipment was used.

Carbendazim to be banned

Carbendazim has been used in the British sports turf and domestic professional turf care industries for years and became the de facto chemical for worm control after Chlordane and other chemicals became unavailable.

Carbendazim is a fungicide but when used on turf to control disease the side effect causes worms from being deterred from entering into treated soil. Carbendazim does not kill worms.

However there are wide concerns about Carbendazim's safety. Studies show that Carbendazim disrupts human and animal hormones.

Residues of Carbendazim in water which has run off of treated agriculture land are known to have infected trout and other fish stocks.

Carbedazim is banned in the United Sates and many believe it is a matter of time before its use in the UK is also banned.

"In Great Britain, the annual area treated in 2001 was 819,398 hectares, with arable crops accounting for 95% (718,757 hectares) of this use(13).

"For example, 38.6% of the winter oil seed rape grown (197,463 ha) in Great Britain is given at least one treatment of carbendazim, and 24% (71,548 ha) is given two treatments(14).

"Over the years, there has been a gradual reduction in carbendazim use – in 1996 just over two million hectares were treated with carbendazim in Great Britain, compared to nearly 1.8 million hectares in 1999 and 821,000 hectares in 2000(15). This is because modern conazole and strobilurin fungicides are more efficacious".

Alternative treatments

Chemicals used in today's domestic and professional turf care industry must have minimal residual effect. It's the grass professional's objective to deter rather than kill worms in the soil.

• CastClear is a non-pesticidal nutrient that increases turf health and suppresses worm activity thus eliminating work casts at the same time.
• CastClear contains more than 5% amino nitrogen with more than 15% bio-organic sulphur.
• CastClear is a combination of nutrient materials that have been clearly shown to reduce worm-cast levels on sports turf and lawns.

Scientific evaluation has shown that the product does not kill worms or reduce population, but does deter worms from travelling through treated soils.

It takes about seven days for CastClear to start working and deters worm activity for between ten and twenty days, depending on underlying soil and weather conditions.

CastClear has just been short-listed as one of the top products at this year's Glee Garden Retail Show

Comments

[Dr Iqbal Jan]

I have used cast clear according to the instructions on my lawn. All it has done turn the gras brown and worms casts are as bad as ever. It is complete waste on time and money. Please do not recommend this rubbish to anyone

[G Davies]

I completely agree (except for the effect on the grass) with Dr Iqbal Jan. CastClear seems to have no effect on the density of casts (about 10 per square metre) despite repeated applications.

[Mike Seaton]

Hi Iqbal, Sorry to learn of your experience with CastClear. If you can email us the following data, we can check your calibrations:

Area of lawn in square metres
Type of garden sprayer
Capacity of garden sprayer
Amount of CastClear applied to the complete lawn
Amount of water applied to the lawn

Thanks

Mike

[Rich]

I have to agree with the rest of the comments, cast clear is useless, last year I spent around £2000 for my new lawn, now all you can see is thick slimy mud with few scattered patches of grass. I feel so helpless. My garden is in constant shade so it's always moist, I have tried everything still no results. There has to be some chemical which is allowed .

[KEVIN CLANCEY]

Me too, i used it last year and my lawn was destroyed by casts... should rename it cast magnet...

[clive james]

I feel the same I have 3 small golf greens and they are ruined by worm casts It has taken me 4 years to get them good and now 6 weeks worm casts have finished them off. What do we use.
Clive

[MR ZAC CROSS]

the banns on these chemicals is going to fuck the green keeping -groundskeepers .the ban on Carbendazim and now the ban on Propiconazole based fungicides .what next