photo: courtesy of Barenbrug USA

What is RTF® (Rhizomatous Tall Fescue) ?

Tall Fescue makes one of the most durable and visually appealing lawns available. They are noted for their rich emerald green colour, deep-rooted drought tolerance and soft texture. More recently, turf breeders developed a variety coined RTF® (Rhizomatous Tall Fescue). RTF® is the holy grail amongst turf-type tall fescues owing to its rhizomatous nature of sending out underground runners (rhizomes) to fill out adjacent bare spots, effectively making it self repairing like couch.

Full renovation using RTF®

Reseedmylawn.com.au offer RTF® lawns from a full renovation only. If your lawn has little to no desirable turfgrass, then consider a RTF® lawn from a full renovation. A mandatory requirement is that the lawn is completely sprayed out with glyphosate (Round-Up®) such that the old weedy lawn is not coming back. Following, the old lawn canopy is fully removed by repeated super low scalping. RTF® is then drilled into and under the soil surface and the seed bed extensively worked. The final precedure is rolling ensuring seed soil contact so the seed imbibes moisture. Fescue germination and establishment takes a little longer than turf ryegrass, so mitigating weed competition and weed seed germination is paramount. For this reason, we use a significantly higher seed rate than sod farms who are mostly working with weed seed free bare earth. The full RTF® renovation process is fairly intensive in labour and on machinery, the seed use more costly; so we charge a little more for a RTF® lawn renovation.

All about Rhizomatous Tall Fescue (RTF®)

A rhizome (from Greek, meaning root-stalk) is a horizontal plant stem, most often found underground. Rhizomes are desirable because they send out new roots and shoots, allowing new plants to propagate at a distance from the original plant.

Recent studies at New Mexico State University prove the RTF® maintained it’s high turf quality all summer long – even under 30% drought conditions. RTF® performed extremely well in this trial – and it’s performance was the best in the hottest months.

RTF® is able to stay lush and green under conditions where 30% less water was used. Tall fescue is recognised as being more drought tolerant than most other species due to it’s deep rooting ability. RTF® is one of the deepest rooting varieties available. It’s roots can dig as deep as 2 metres tapping into water not normally available to other varieties and species. In addition, RTF® has been selected for drought and heat tolerance and is endophyte enhanced which gives it an advantage that is unparalleled in the turf industry. (Source: Heritage Seeds)