Tuesday 21 April 2015

Buffalo turf lawn care and how to look after your buffalo lawn

Buffalo turf grass has become very popular in Australia as it is a warm season turf grass. The newer varieties of the soft leaf buffalo like Shademaster and Sir Walter Buffalo are especially popular. Let us look at a quick categorization of grasses which says that they can be categorized into two broad categories – the cold season grasses and warm season grasses. The cold season grasses include the rye and fescue grasses while there are many warm season grasses. These include soft leaf grasses, Queensland Blue Couch; Couch also known as Bermuda, Kikuyu Turf Zoysia and others.

The main difference between Buffalo and Queensland Blue couch and other grasses is that the former two are built only with stolons which are above ground runners. On the other hand the other grasses like the green couch, the kikuyu and Zoysia have both above ground and below ground runners – Stolons and Rhizomes. The original buffalo grass was the hard leaf variety and at that time only buffalo variety was available. However, since the 1970s turf farmers have created more desirable buffalo grasses. These varieties include the best Australian bred buffalo, which is the Sir Walter. These grasses have softer leaves and are more tolerant of shade than other turf grasses.

Sir Walter is also more tolerant to herbicide sprays and also has a richer green colour in the winter You need to be extra careful while spraying buffalo turf with herbicides for broadleaf weeds like dandelions, clover, and bindii. The ideal herbicide for soft leaf buffalo would be main active constituents being 200g/l Bromoxynil and 200g/l MCPA. You can also consult your turf suppliers for the ideal herbicide for your lawn. Most of the suppliers also provide consultation and ongoing service for the maintenance of the lawn. This is the reason that you will never be without advice for the maintenance of your buffalo grass lawn. Any selective herbicide which contains Dicamba should not be used on this turf. However, there are many herbicides meant especially for buffalo grass in the market and you can find them with a little research.

Another thing to keep in mind while maintaining buffalo turf is that you should not mow too close to the ground – in other words do not scalp the lawn. The reason for this is as mentioned above that the buffalo grass has only above ground runners. Hence, if mown too short the grass will die, but of course frequent mowing is necessary for the maintenance of the lawn. At the same time, you should take some advice from the suppliers as to what would be the ideal length for mowing the grass leaves.

Now if you want to know where you can find the soft leaf buffalo suppliers who also double up as advisors, then you should look up the internet. Most of the buffalo grass suppliers have their own user friendly websites that provide complete details about the grasses they have for sale. It is quite possible that buffalo is not the ideal turf for you, in which case they will be able to suggest more suitable varieties.

No comments:

Post a Comment