Perhaps the most exciting thing about leading the Turf & Ornamentals business for BASF is our commitment to innovation. As a basic manufacturer we work hard to bring new products and innovations to market to meet the needs of the turf professional.
Last year, we brought four new herbicides into our portfolio including postemergents Drive® XLR8, Onetime™, and Segment™, as well as FreeHand® 1.75G, a preemergent for landscape ornamentals. In 2009, we’ll begin to see and hear success stories from end users on all of those products.
Also this year our pipeline of innovation will bear two new products for use in the golf market, Honor™ fungicide and Tower® herbicide. Honor is a combination of boscalid and pyraclostrobin and brings good broad spectrum disease control to golf course superintendents by combining these two highly effective active ingredients.
Tower herbicide is a liquid, preemergence product that provides broad-spectrum control of small-seeded broadleaves, grasses and sedges including yellow nutsedge. It contains a new active ingredient for turf called dimethenamid-p.
Look for both products to be available this fall and included in the 2010 BASF Early Order Program.
But innovation is not just products at BASF, it’s also in how we reach turf professionals through unique marketing initiatives such as FarmLinks. In fact, this June we’ll celebrate two years as a cornerstone partner with FarmLinks, the research and demonstration golf course in Sylacauga, Alabama.
Last year, BASF was exposed to more than 1,300 turf professionals via FarmLinks and of that group more than 60 percent were potential new customers. We also ran many trials at FarmLinks to test new products and efficacy of current products on new emerging weeds and diseases.
For 2009 we’re conducting demonstration trials with Tower and Honor and are looking for more feedback and ideas from turf pros on these innovations and many others.
So what does this mean to you? It underscores a long-term commitment to the industry and reinvestment in solutions to improve their efficacy and use.
BASF is here to help you solve the pest problems on your turf today and continuing research and development from our company means we’ll be around tomorrow as well.
Thank you,
Dr. Toni Bucci
Business Manager
BASF Turf & Ornamentals
