COMAND® All Natural Compost
Keeping turfgrass in great condition is a year-round challenge for superintendents. Weather, soil quality, a shrinking selection of pesticides, irrigation restrictions, fertilizer bans, and tightening maintenance budgets, can all significantly affect the look and playability of a golf course or sports fields. COMAND® provides a natural, cost effective way of sustaining quality playing surfaces, that become easier to maintain.
What is COMAND®?
COMAND® is a unique compost product produced with precise proprietary blends of enzyme-producing microbes, some unique composting methodology, and inventive techniques of maximizing beneficial microorganisms in the finished product. COMAND® is truly a bio-engineered, yet completely natural product. COMAND® can be utilized straight, or alternatively, can be custom blended with varying amounts of high quality sand to create topdressings and rootzone mixes.
What Makes COMAND® So Unique?
Through many years of research, Harvest Quest developed an inoculum, which accelerates and uniquely enhances the natural biological process of composting. The use of the inoculum reverses the physics of composting, with initial temperatures being generated on the outside of the piles and the heat front moving inwards. This unique phenomenon allows microbes to increase optimally and results in the creation of very mature and biologically diverse compost. Furthermore, carefully controlled curing procedures and re-inoculation with mesophilic (ambient temperature) microbiology is implemented known to improve populations of beneficial microbes. COMAND® is screened to a very fine consistency, which removes woody particles, making it suitable for applying to even the most closely mown turf.
Benefits of Using COMAND®
COMAND® adds high quality organic matter to the rootzone.
- Supplies stabilized organic matter
- Increases moisture infiltration and permeability
- Improved water holding in light soils, providing greater drought resistance and more efficient water utilization
- Improves the soils ability to hold nutrients
- Aids the proliferation of soil microbes, which assist in Thatch reduction
- Contains humus, making nutrients more available to plants
- Improved wear tolerance
Complimentary to other management programs, provides for more efficient utilization of fertilizers COMAND® can be incorporated into your turf establishment and maintenance programs all season long and will typically show results within a few days.
Improved Soil Structure
Organic matter plays a key role in the structural stability of the rootzone. Many experiments have shown that compost improves the aggregate strength of soils. A rootzone without organic matter compacts very easily and suffers from poor aggregation. Conversely, healthy soil maintains pore spaces and has much improved oxygen transfer and water infiltration rates. The addition of COMAND® improves friability, porosity, and water permeability meaning roots can penetrate more easily and find nutrients and water. Reduced compaction and surface hardness, coupled with the benefit of a smooth and level surface from topdressing, can lead to reduced injury risks on sports fields.
Better Water Management
Percolation rates are maintained, making COMAND® an important water conservation tool for turfgrass management. The addition of COMAND® can provide greater drought resistance and more efficient water utilization, allowing the frequency and intensity of irrigation to be reduced.
Provides Soil Biota / Thatch Reduction
COMAND® provides Actinomycetes (enzyme-producing bacteria) and fungi. These groups of living organisms play an important role in turfgrass. Thatch forms a layer in the upper root zone and restricts the percolation of water and movement of air. This coupled with compaction, can result in anaerobic conditions, leading to very shallow root systems, drought stresses, and disease pressures. The microbial colonists in COMAND® can consume thatch, converting it to humus. Strictly speaking, Thatch is ‘organic material’ (largely undecomposed), whereas COMAND® is ‘organic matter’ (decomposed, stabilized and partially mineralized). In practical terms, the degradation of thatch (organic material) and its conversion to humus (organic matter) providing the turf manager work time and expense whilst improving the playing surface.
Beneficial Microorganisms
COMAND® is not a pesticide. However, it contains naturally – occurring microorganisms, which may help to suppress soil-borne populations of some plant diseases. Research has shown that increased populations of certain microorganisms can suppress plant diseases in turfgrass, such as Dollar Spot and Brown Patch, as well as being antagonistic to nematodes.