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From the TurfNet NewsDesk
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News and people briefs
By John Reitman, in News,
Lexicon Intrinsic brand fungicide from BASF now is labeled for four applications per year at the highest rate of 0.47 ounces per 1,000 square feet. This is an increase over the original labeled rate of three applications per year. The fourth application is not approved in New York. With the active ingredients fluxapyroxad and pyraclostrobin, Lexicon Intrinsic brand fungicide optimizes disease control and provides plant health benefits for longer, stronger roots, increased growth efficiency and greater stress tolerance. This broad-spectrum fungicide is labeled for control of 27 diseases for up to 28 days, proving the confidence that comes with long-lasting control. Its proven plant health benefits provide faster recovery from stressors like heat, humidity, low light, drought heavy play and aeration. PBI-Gordon is celebrating its 50-year anniversary
PBI-Gordon is celebrating its 50-year anniversary. Founded in 1947 in Kansas City, Missouri, as Private Brands Inc. by John Mueller, Bob Mueller, John Mathias and Roy Boxmeyer, the company started by formulating pesticides for a variety of chemical companies. In 1956, Private Brands Inc. acquired Gordon Chemical. Fourteen years later, in 1970 the names of the two companies were combined and Private Brands became known as PBI-Gordon. By 1968, the company, while still formulating chemistries for other companies, started its own brand of products. Today, the employee-owned company produces its own line that includes herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and growth regulators for the professional turf and ornamental management industry. The company also develops and markets products for the consumer lawn, garden, farm and ranch, animal health and grooming, and consumer and veterinary markets. Civitas EOP under way
The Intelligro Civitas Turf Defense Early Order Program will continue through Dec, 15. Participants can save 5 percent on orders of 75-199 gallons, 7.5 percent on 200-500 gallons and 10 percent on all orders of 500-plus gallons. Also, members of the Civitas Turf Defense Rewards Program automatically receive double rewards points on purchases made before Dec. 1 Bayer program extended for customers affected by hurricanes
Bayer Environmental Science's early order incentive program, Bayer Fall Solutions Program, will continue through Dec. 8. The program includes savings on products such as Specticle, Signature XTRA Stressgard, Indemnify and Exteris Stressgard. Customers can save up to 24 percent on PAKs with a large selection of individual solutions and product bundles geared to suit specific turf needs and also can earn a 1 percent bonus rebate on their entire purchase when they buy any PAK and an additional 1 percent on purchases made before Oct. 31. In response to the recent hurricanes, Bayer has extended the October bonus incentive through Nov. 30 for customers in Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico.- Read more...
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Kautzer worked 28 years for Honeywell before joining Foley United, a maker of grinding and sharpening products for turf maintenance equipment with headquarters in River Falls, Wisconsin. His career at Honeywell included serving as vice president and general manager of the companys electromechanical sensing and control business and vice president of industrial control products in its Asia-Pacific market.
He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Stout with degrees in technology education and industrial technology, and is has achieved Six Sigma certification.
Letourneau retires after a 30-year career with Foley United, which was founded by Walter Ringer in 1926. As part owner of the company, Letourneau will remain on as an advisor and member of the company's board of directors.
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You can see it in his lectures. He is extremely passionate. . . . You can tell the man never works, because he's doing exactly what he loves every day."
The course went under the knife in 2016 for a major renovation by Chris Lutzke of Albanese & Lutzke to make sure it remained a relevant challenge to golfers and moved water as efficiently as possible. That included bringing in 3,700 dump trucks of fill and regrassing the fairways with Latitude 36 Bermudagrass, which is known for its drought tolerance. While growing in the Latitude 36 last year, Old Marsh superintendent Tony Nysse noticed that the turf in some areas wasn't as healthy as it could be. Samples submitted to Crow's lab in Gainesville confirmed the source of the problem. "Our first instinct was nematodes, but before making any sort of applications, we decided to send samples to Dr. Crow and the University of Florida," Nysse said. "Our results came back confirming our thoughts - lance and sting nematodes over 500 and 100 (per cubic centimeter, respectively). This is way past the threshold of allowing for any grass to grow." Crow established a control program that has helped the reworked Old Marsh get back to being as grueling and aesthetically pleasing as ever. "We have so many different applications available at our fingertips to combat the onslaught of nematodes. As we try to always be good stewards of the land, to have the ability to have answers 24 to 48 hours after sending a soil sample to the University of Florida is vital to any superintendent's success in our state," Nysse said. "To have a professor of Dr. Crow's caliber, and his team, whose focus is nematodes, is a huge benefit to the Florida Golf Course Superintendents Association." During a recent two-day Evidence-Based Turfgrass Management conference in Gainesville that focused on pest management, Crow showed professional turf managers how he and his team extract nematodes from soil samples for analysis and helped the group find the pests under a microscope, and more. "The highlight, and everybody's been wanting to get to do this, is you guys are going to actually tease a female root knot nematode out of a Bermudagrass root," Crow said during the seminar. "How many of you have done that before. It's guaranteed to be something new." Today, the UF nematology lab receives samples from near and far from turf managers and homeowners seeking help with the grass they manage. "We get samples from all over," Crow said. "They're mostly from southern states, but we're increasingly getting them from Midwest and northern states as well. We just got a permit to get samples from Hawaii, and so we've started to get them from there over the past few months. We get them from California, Washington, all over." As Nysse hinted, a team that specializes in turfgrass nematology makes the Florida lab unique. Crow's lab doesn't have a permit to receive live samples from out of the country, but he does accept those that have been preserved in a solution, which allows him to receive samples from places like China, Australia and South Africa. "There are some good diagnostics labs in a lot of places, but not in every place, and not ones that specialize in turf diagnostics," he said. "Many nematode diagnostics labs will specialize in nematodes on tobacco, or potatoes or cotton. They don't really work with turf. That's where we can help." Crow was on the interview committee that hired entomologist Adam Dale, Ph.D., in 2016. Today, Dale considers Crow more than a colleague. He's a mentor, too. "Having him as a resource to come to and ask questions has really been valuable to me from the beginning. From my interview until now," Dale said. "He is the world's leading specialist in turfgrass nematodes. In turfgrass nematology there is one person people point to and that is Dr. Billy Crow." Even colleagues seek out advice on such a specialized field. "He's who I call if someone calls me about nematodes," Shaddox said. "I know the basics and can help direct them in the right direction, but if they need more detailed information , he's the specialist other faculty call. It's not just homeowners and turf managers, other faculty go to him as a resource."
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Grigg, in cooperation with the universities of Massachusetts and Georgia, recently presented a three-day series of webinars covering winter prep on golf courses for cool- and warm-season turfgrasses. Held Sept. 26-28, the three-day seminar included presentations by Michelle DaCosta, Ph.D., associate professor of turfgrass physiology at UMass; Gordon Kauffman, Ph.D., turf and ornamental technical manager for Brandt, the parent company of Grigg; and Gerald Henry, Ph.D., associate professor of turfgrass environmental science at the University of Georgia. All three are available for on-demand playback by clicking here. DaCosta has published several pieces of research on the effects of winter conditions on annual bluegrass and creeping bentgrass. Her presentation entitled "Maximizing cool-season turfgrass physiology and management for winter survival" focused on a practical overview of cool-season turfgrass physiology and management strategies as related to low temperature preconditioning and winter survival. Topics discussed include the major causes for winter injury in northern climates, physiological mechanisms aiding in turfgrass freezing tolerance, as well how environmental conditions and management practices interact with turfgrass physiology to impact winter survival. She also addressed best management practices to help minimize winter injury and promote turf recovery in the spring. Part II in the series was Kauffman's "Cultural strategies for autumn and cool-season turfgrasses." His focus was on fertilization and additional cultural practices that can lead to improved turf vigor, winter survival, and spring green up, as well as nutrient requirements, their source, and timing and method of application. That presentation also covers topics such as how carefully planned fall fertilization, mechanical cultivation and disease control strategies can impact turfgrass growth and vigor in late fall and winter. The series concluded with Henry's presentation "Preparing warm-season turfgrasses for cold stress." Henry, who started the turf program at Texas Tech, came to UGA in 2012 after the retirement of Keith Karnok, and is an associate professor of turfgrass science with an emphasis on plant, pest and environmental interactions. His research interests include a wide range of subjects, such as physiology, ecology, weed science, fertility and management. His winter prep presentation addressed low-temperature stress and proper management strategies to enhance warm-season turfgrass acclimation to winter conditions. Specific topics include impact of cultural practices on the onset of turfgrass dormancy, symptomatology of freezing injury, genetic variability in freezing tolerance and microclimate influences on injury severity. He also discussed best management practices for the reduction of winter injury and encouragement of turfgrass recovery/spring green-up. All TurfNet Webinars are sponsored by Grigg and BASF and live broadcasts are free for TurfNet members and non-members. All are recorded and available on-demand for TurfNet members. Select archived webinars, including the winter prep series, are available for non-members, as well. Click here for more information about the benefits of TurfNet membership.
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Customers in areas impacted by hurricanes Harvey and Irma have until Nov. 15 to qualify for the rebate program. The extension has been granted to customers throughout all of Florida, Houston and coastal Texas as well as southern and coastal Georgia so they can continue to focus on their personal needs, not EOP EOP deadlines.
"We are very saddened by the devastation these hurricanes have caused, and we know how many of our customers are impacted," said Jeff Vannoy, BASF senior product manager for turf products. "This extension is just a small helping hand to allow customers to focus on whats important in the short term."
Customers in these areas should contact their local BASF or distributor to take advantage of the extension.
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He lifted the veil of ignorance from his people and pointed the way to progress through education and industry."
The accomplishments of Tuskegee University graduates read like a who's who of medicine, science and industry, entrepreneurship, politics, civil service, athletic endeavor and entertainment. George Washington Carver taught there, the university gave rise to the Tuskegee Airmen, and the The Commodores originated there during Pennington's freshman year. When Pennington arrived on campus as a green-behind-the ears teenager, he did so with aspirations of following in the footsteps of his idol Daniel "Chappie" James Jr. A 1942 graduate of Tuskegee, James was as a flight instructor and combat pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps and U.S. Air Force during World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam War. He was the first black man to attain the rank of four-star general and eventually served as the commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in Colorado. "I wanted to be a Tuskegee Airman," said Pennington. "I wanted my bars as a second lieutenant, and I wanted to fly B-52s in Vietnam." After going through Tuskegee's ROTC program, Pennington arrived at an induction center in Montgomery hell-bent on earning his wings. Surprisingly, an officer there told him to stay in school and forget about life in the military. "He saw potential in me to do something more," Pennington said. "He told me I was better off not to go to a war-torn country and be back in six weeks in a body bag. "I look back on it as a blessing. He saw potential. He saw that I could do something better and be part of society and contribute to it." Although Pennington excelled on the football field, the road to matriculation at Tuskegee wasn't always so easy. As a football star, he recalled how he didn't think he needed to attend English classes. "I felt I didn't have to go to class," he said. "I was a football player." His professor eventually set him straight. "She asked me if I couldn't converse or write a letter, how was I ever going to be able to talk with anyone," he said. "It was all part of being the best you can be." After earning a degree in chemistry education in 1970, Pennington briefly joined the football staff as an interim coach and scout, before moving on to General Electric later that year where he worked as a nuclear technician reprocessing spent nuclear fuel in the company's Midwest Fuel Recovery Plant in Morris, Illinois. Two years later, he moved on to begin a long career with BASF. Currently the company's sales representative for the Carolinas region, Pennington has filled a number of roles throughout his 45-year career with the company, including national accounts manager, market manager and fumigation specialist. He has been named BASF's salesman of the year three times and developed a method for regrassing golf courses that still is used today. For some perspective, Pennington said that when his career with the company began, Jon Sweat, BASF's director of professional and speciality solutions, was just one-day old. Pennington has given back to others on mission trips to Europe and Central America with his church in his home of Raleigh, North Carolina. "Tuskegee has a unique history," Pennington said. "When you just look at that statue of Booker T. Washington, whose goal was to lift the veil of ignorance for those who didn't think they could get anywhere, you realize you can do something with your life and be the best you can be. It just takes perseverance and hard work. Tuskegee taught me that."
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Fort Brown once stood as a shining monument to Texas history. Today, it's a discarded remnant of the past. Built on the site of a former historic military installation named for the city's namesake, Maj. Jacob Brown, the golf course operated from the mid-1950s until its closing in 2015. It wasn't declining interest in the game that doomed Fort Brown as much as it was federal immigration policy that nearly sealed off the course from the rest of the country and left the property's owner, its determined manager and those who played there out in the cold. Like many cities throughout the state, Brownsville is rich with history dating to the Texas Revolution, the Mexican-American War and the Civil War. Commissioned in 1846, the military installation at Fort Brown saw action in armed conflicts dating from the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) to the Civil War to World War II. Originally named Fort Texas, it was late renamed to honor its leader who was killed there in 1846. During the Civil War, the installation was occupied at one time or another by both Confederate and Union forces, and the Army used it for air combat training during World War II. Shortly after the fort was decommissioned in 1946, a full century after it was established, the city of Brownsville built a golf course on the site. According to historic archives, the course, like so many others, was built to as an alternative to country club golf. For more than a half-century, the Fort Brown Memorial Golf Course was a place where locals, including much of the area's Hispanic population, could learn the game and enjoy affordable golf. Originally owned by the city, the course was turned over in 1992 to nearby Texas Southernmost College, which, along with local high schools, used the facility as its home course. Located on the southern tip of one of the many peninsulas formed by the meandering Rio Grande, the course literally was a short-iron from Matamoros, Mexico. Years ago, that city became a haven for Mexican drug cartels and gangs and quickly cemented a place on the U.S. government's short list of Mexico's most dangerous cities. Despite its location and aging infrastructure, the course remained quite busy after Bob Lucio took over as manager in 1997. With new irrigation in 2004 and Champion Bermudagrass greens, Fort Brown was humming right along to the tune of about 40,000 rounds per year just as the golf industry was about to go off the rails.. Then came 2005 when word of a pending border fence project leaked out. Lucio's family was heavy into local politics, so he had been aware of border fence rumors in the air, but efforts to fight the fence seemed fruitless. Almost immediately, many who played at Fort Brown on a regular basis stopped coming back and Lucio's insurance carrier nearly doubled his rates. It was bad timing for the operator, who just the year before had invested in a new irrigation system. With the wounds inflicted on 9/11 still fresh in the United States, the Department of Homeland Security made good on a pledge to try to curtail drug and crime activity in Matamoros from crossing the border and in 2008-2009 constructed the fence years before political rhetoric of a wall dominated the news and election cycles. Rather than follow the course of the river throughout the entirety of its run between the Brownsville and Matamoros, the fence cuts along in a series of straight lines in some of those peninsular areas, virtually isolating sects of American territory between Mexico and the manmade barrier and alienating people on both sides of the Rio Grande. Located in that no-man's land, seemingly cut off from the rest of Brownsville and the state of Texas was the golf course. There was still limited access to the course after the fence went up, but getting there became a lot harder and being there became a lot less safe. Predictably, play slowed to a trickle right away. Revenue, according to past reports, dropped by nearly half that first year, but Lucio was determined to try to make a go of it. Eventually, the prep and college teams that called Fort Brown home were forbidden to play or even practice there out of concerns for player safety. A sign on the 16th hole warned golfers that hitting a ball into Mexico - which was very doable from many areas on the course, even for hackers - would mean prosecution. It was intended as a lighthearted reminder of the proximity to one of Mexico's worst neighborhoods. The writing was on the wall for golfers at Fort Brown and its manager, who slogged on until 2015, when the course finally closed. Two years later, reminders of the course still are visible, and a video by USA Today indicates fixtures still remain inside the abandoned clubhouse. Fort Brown Memorial's past as a purveyor of affordable golf for the masses is a reminder of what is good about golf. Overgrown and abandoned, and its stakeholders forgotten, it also is a reminder that golf and government don't always mix.- Read more...
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GRIGG (formerly Grigg Brothers), in cooperation with the universities of Massachusetts and Georgia, is presenting a three-day series of TurfNet University Webinars covering just about all aspects of winter prep on golf courses. The three-day seminar takes place from 1-2 p.m. each day from Sept. 26 through Sept. 28. Michelle DaCosta, associate professor of turfgrass physiology at UMass kicks things off Sept. 26 with her presentation titled Maximizing cool-season turfgrass physiology and management for winter survival. DaCosta has published research on the effects of winter conditions on annual bluegrass and creeping bentgrass. Her presentation will focus on a practical overview of cool-season turfgrass physiology and management strategies as related to low temperature preconditioning and winter survival. Topics for discussion will include the major causes for winter injury in northern climates, physiological mechanisms aiding in turfgrass freezing tolerance, as well how environmental conditions and management practices interact with turfgrass physiology to impact winter survival. Attendees will gain a better understanding of best management practices to help minimize winter injury and promote turf recovery in the spring. The series continues on Sept. 27 when Gordon Kauffman, III, Ph.D., turf and ornamental technical specialist for Brandt, presents Cultural strategies for autumn and cool-season turfgrasses. In this webinar, the emphasis will be on fertilization and additional cultural practices that can lead to improved turf vigor, winter survival, and spring green up. Specific attention will be paid to nutrient requirements, their source, and timing and method of application. Attendees will gain an important understanding of how carefully planned fall fertilization, mechanical cultivation and disease control strategies can impact turfgrass growth and vigor as we head into the late fall and winter seasons. The series will close Sept. 28 when Gerald Henry, Ph.D., associate professor of turfgrass environmental science at the University of Georgia, presents Preparing warm-season turfgrasses for cold stress. In that presentation, Henry will discuss low-temperature stress and proper management strategies to enhance warm-season turfgrass acclimation to winter conditions. Specific topics will include impact of cultural practices on the onset of turfgrass dormancy, symptomatology of freezing injury, genetic variability in freezing tolerance and microclimate influences on injury severity. Expected learning outcomes include the identification of best management practices for the reduction of winter injury and encouragement of turfgrass recovery/spring green-up. All TurfNet University Webinars are sponsored by GRIGG and BASF and are free for TurfNet members and non-members. These and all webinars are recorded for on-demand playback, but you have to be a TurfNet member if you want to watch those. Click here for more information about the benefits of TurfNet membership.- Read more...
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Because it is a two-day event, we are able to dig in deeper. We still provide education at state conferences and regional seminars and industry meetings. Those are good, but you can only go so far in one hour. Here, we have two days digging in and digging in deep."
That session also included a visit to the nematode lab, where workers there demonstrated how to extract nematode samples from soil before they can be identified. Attendees then prepared their own lance nematode samples for viewing under the microscope. He also led a demonstration in which his "students" used forceps to coax female root knot nematodes from galls on the leaf surface of turf samples. "The primary objective was to teach attendees about the major types of nematodes that affect turf, recognize the symptoms of different types of nematodes, take samples and interpret the results," Crow said. "It is important to make the correct identification so you can pick the right control method for the specific nematodes you have." Ferrell kicked off the workshop with a brief history of herbicides, a lecture on how they work and why some work better than others. Visitors to Phil Harmon's lab in Fifield Hall went into the yard outside the building for some quick in-the-field disease diagnosis and retreated inside to learn the differences between some common turf pathogens. That workshop also included preparing and viewing samples under a microscope for the purpose diagnosing pathogens such as sclerotinia homeocarp, rhizoctonia, curvularia and Pythium. All lessons and findings shared with attendees are supported by published peer-reviewed research. "When we set out to do these evidence-based turf management workshops, we get published research behind them," Unruh said. "These are not our opinions or ideas, these are facts." The emphasis on correct diagnosis of a pest problem was an overarching theme throughout each of the four presentations. "Correct diagnosis is the first step to effective control," Dale said. His presentation covered some of the most common insect pests in Florida turfgrass. And although superintendents in other parts of the country might never have to worry about control methods for southern mole crickets, the basic tenets of Dale's presentation transcend geography and insect species. "All pests directly interact with temperature, water, plant stress. Anything that makes the landscape what it is has an effect on insect pests," Dale said. "The keys to pest management are: what is the host, how does the pest feed, what is its lifecycle. All these things tell you how to treat, with what and when." He offered a five-step process to implementing a successful IPM plan for insect pest management. > know what problem is; > track the problem, monitor pests and damage; > decide when to act; > select a specific IPM; > evaluate progress. "There was a need across the state for more information. We put our brains together and came up with an event that provided greater value than a traditional turf conference," said Travis Shaddox, Ph.D., assistant professor of turfgrass science and extension specialist at UF's Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center. "We felt we could provide experiential value, looking under a microscope and going out into the field to support a lecture."
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The gas-powered Gator HPX615E and the diesel-powered Gator HPX815E offer four-wheel drive as well as enhanced payload, cargo capacity, towing and overall stability. Most notably, the cargo box features removable sides and tailgate, a one-handed, pickup style opening, and is designed to last with durable composite construction that makes it dent, rattle and rust-resistant. The new Gators also offer more cargo volume, up to 16.3 cubic feet. And the cargo box can be transformed to a flatbed for carrying large, irregular shaped cargo. Both new models boast new styling, 1,000-pound cargo capacity, 1,300-pound towing capacity and 1,400-pound payload capacity. Optimal weight distribution, 6-inches (152.4 mm) of ground clearance and four-wheel drive allow both the gas- and diesel-powered models to tackle most types of terrain and go places many other vehicles cannot.- Read more...
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