Fred Eckert and I took a group of superintendents and UAP Professional Products distributors to FarmLinks last week. Willie Pennington and Campbell Cox brought their groups afterward and it was a tough act for them to follow! We had a great time, and as a result we had almost all supers request a call back to talk about their program and how BASF can play a bigger part. I really appreciate the teamwork with Fred to help the group have a great FarmLinks Experience. We had a few supers stay back to discuss fairy ring in a more in depth manner. I can’t wait to have Brian Thompson start in his role at FarmLinks, and look forward to working with him at FarmLinks and in the field.

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As we were reading From the desk of GCM, the official blog of GCSAA’s Golf Course Management magazine, we saw a link to a blog written by a Minnesota superintendent chronicling maintenance activities at his course.

Read about how golf course superintendent Chris Tritabaugh at Northland CC in Duluth, Minn., is managing his course here.

Last week I gave a CEU presentation to a group of customers. The buzz is starting about Trinity in the 0.5 gallon SKU.

I also attended FarmLinks with Willie Pennington. The group included of four Orlando-based superintendents. The remaining supers were from Georgia and the Carolinas. Day one was heavy rainfall so Toro and BASF gave their presentations. This turned out to be a great thing, it really freed up a lot of time on Thursday for more golf, fishing, R&R. One superintendent I brought from Georgia was ecstatic about Insignia and Trinity. He is allegedly beginning his new Volutum program this week.

As Widespread Panic once said. AIN’T LIFE GRAND……

Ya’ll Be good.

Brian Thompson will begin working as the full-time BASF staff member at FarmLinks in May. In his new role, he will take the lead on presenting the BASF portion of The Experience at FarmLinks. Brian was formerly a golf course superintendent at Sutton Bay Golf Club in Agar, South Dakota. Prior to that, he served as superintendent at Elcona Country Club in Elkhart, Ind. He has also worked at the Inverness Club in Toledo, OH and the Birck boilermaker Golf Complex at Purdue. Brian is a Purdue University graduate with a B.S. in Turf Management.
 
Once he gets settled, Brian will begin posting blog entries covering the latest at FarmLinks

Spring is almost upon us in the lower Midwest. Higher than average precipitation has helped the water table catch up from the summer drought.
Pre-emergent applications have been going down on granulars and sprayables are coming around as well. Emerald-First applications are not too far off.

The Kentuckiana GCSA had a spring education meeting where Purdue and UK spoke in the morning and vendors had a 30 minute slot for new product updates.  The meeting was well attended.

I attended my first JDL open house of the season right here in Lexington.  The store has changed along with the personnel. There was an irrigation section that took up a lot of space that was previously used for fertilizer. LCOs are the most price-sensitive group of individuals in the professional turf market.  I also was able to sell an Insignia application for an LCO. Just one acre’s worth, but still a fungicide in lawn care.