The TourTurf® GSC Granular Seaweed Conditioner contains consistently high levels of plant hormones including Betaines, Auxins, Cytokinins and Giberellins that trigger stimulation of plants to produce their roots, shoots and stem elongation.

Meanwhile, the Alginic acid and Mannitol are recognised as important plant function enhancers whilst natural bioactives Laminarin and Fucoidan play a significant part in warding off pathogenic soil bacteria, as well as enhancing plant antioxidant activities.

Benefits of GSC:

• Excellent plant growth enhancer
• Soil activator and food for beneficial microbes
• 100% organic ingredients
• High quality steadily released plant nutrients
• Amino acids for stress relief
• Flavonoids to enhance growth and cope with stress
• Contains no animal by products or chemicals
• Suitable for vegan organic farming
• GMO free
• Produced using environmentally sustainable methods

Nutrients:
Increasingly there is an expectation to reduce macronutrient inputs (N, P, K, & S) to plant production. Incorporating such a high-quality seaweed granule is one of the best ways of achieving this over time.

Numerous studies, from agricultural and horticultural crop production, through to sports turf and amenity plant maintenance have reported significant benefits from adding seaweed compounds to the nutritional programmes.

In recent years turf professionals have worked hard to optimise plant biology and maximising soil life to attain their highest fertiliser efficiency. Steadily over time, these biological practices are partially substituting chemical approaches, so reducing artificial and mineral fertiliser requirements, with it, the reliance on chemicals to overcome plant diseases.

Although often required in small amounts, seaweed contains many elements often missing in otherwise productive growing conditions. Eucheuma Spinosum seaweed granules are naturally high in trace elements and antioxidants, all important for both high-functioning soils and plant nutrition.

Seaweed contains plant hormones:
The TourTurf® GSC Granular Seaweed Conditioner contains consistently high levels of plant hormones including Betaines, Auxins, Cytokinins and Giberellins that trigger stimulation of plants to produce their roots, shoots and stem elongation. Meanwhile, Alginates and Mannitol are recognised as important plant function enhancers.

Amino Acids:
GSC contains 17 different amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks for plant proteins. The plant will combine amino acids to form peptide chains and later complex proteins. All the processes in the plant like tissue development, growth, recovery from injury and self-defence require proteins.

The turf plant can synthesise all the needed amino acids from the mineral nutrients it takes in. But the plant can absorb amino acids through the roots as well, saving the energy to produce them itself, especially in times of plant stress.

Over time, microorganisms in the rootzone will break down amino acids into their components, making nutrients readily plant available.

Flavonoids:
Turf is exposed to ever more environmental extremes like drought, high temperatures and salinity. Powerful natural compounds like flavonoids act as stress relievers. They can help the plant to tolerate and resist environmental stress. They play an important role in plant growth by increasing the plants resiliency against certain biotic and abiotic stresses. Flavonoids are used by the plant as signal compounds to communicate with rhizosphere microbes.

Fatty Acids:
Fatty acids are key building blocks of cell membranes, they benefit turf by enhancing its cell membrane structure and giving it structural stability.

Strong cells make turf more resistant to environmental stress like foot traffic or turf pathogens.

By improving the cell membrane structure, fatty acids can help turf retain more water, improving drought tolerance and reducing the need for frequent irrigation. Fatty acids can play a role in regulating physiological responses and help the plant to react to heat stress.

Healthy cell membranes are necessary for nutrient uptake, enabling turf to access water and nutrients more effectively.

Some research suggests that certain fatty acids could have antifungal properties, potentially helping to make the plant more resilient against certain turf diseases. Some fatty acids can function as signalling molecules, triggering the plants response to disease.

Benefits for beneficial soil life:
Whilst the nutrients in the granules are slowly released to be made available in steady flow to the plant, they provide food to soil microbes, facilitating other biological processes in soil.

In keeping with the old saying, ‘feed the soil to feed the plant’, many of the components in the seaweed granules, such as the vitamins, amino acids, proteins, oils, carbohydrates and sugars, provide sustenance to soil microbial life.

These microbes in turn play a key part in plant growth and plant health, as well propagating further beneficial bacterial and fungal growth such as saprophytic fungi and mycorrhiza that both indirectly contribute to plant nutrition and produce glomalin that binds soil particles into aggregates.

Seaweed compounds added to soils will build the CEC (Cation Exchange Capacity), resulting in increases nutrient storage capabilities. They are also strongly associated with microbial soil life and the improved soil structure gives increased air space for drainage, deeper rooting and the all-important oxygenation of the soil profile.