COLUMBUS, OH—Turfgrass professionals and other green-industry personnel can stay a cut above the rest by going to the Turfgrass Research Field Day, Wednesday, Aug. 13, at the Ohio Turfgrass Foundation (OTF) Research and Education Facility, 2551 Carmack Road, Columbus. Designed for golf course superintendents, grounds and athletic field managers, lawn-care operators, sod producers, and landscape specialists, the program features the latest research findings by Ohio State University experts.
“This year more than ever the economics of the business are important,” said Dave Gardner of Ohio State’s Department of Horticulture and Crop Science and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC). “We’ll have several stops dealing directly with optimizing the efficiency and management of operations while minimizing costs. We’ll show attendees how to better manage turfgrass with fewer inputs to make their operations more sustainable in today’s business climate.”
Registration for OTF members costs $25 per person by Aug. 7 and $35 after. Registration for non-members costs $30 per person by Aug. 7 and $40 after. Registration includes coffee, doughnuts and lunch courtesy of OTF. Lunch is guaranteed only for pre-registrants. For registration forms and additional information, contact OTF at (888) 683-3445, or register online at http://www.ohioturfgrass.org.
OARDC and OSU Extension are the program’s sponsors. OTF is the co-sponsor.
“The program features the latest product innovations — new herbicides, fungicides and insecticides — and management strategies to deal with the rising costs of fertilizers,” Gardner said.
The field day opens with registration at 8 a.m. Todd Voss, OTF president, and Karl Danneberger, a member of Ohio State’s Turfgrass Science Team, will give a welcome and introductions at 9 a.m.
A golf turfgrass research track will cover the topics of dew, fungicide evaluation, fungicide timing, dollar spot/fertility, shaded bentgrass, insecticides and putting-green hydrology.
A lawn and grounds research track will have talks on low-input sustainable turfgrass, plant growth regulators (PGRs), fertilizer/PGRs, fertilizer costs, pre-emergence crabgrass control, broadleaf weed control and urban landscape ecology
The afternoon talks, 1-2 p.m.:
• “Ornamental Insect and Mite Management Update for 2008,” Dave Shetlar, Entomology, OSU.
• “Weed Control,” Gardner and John Street, Horticulture and Crop Science, OSU.
• “Turfgrass Pest Diagnostic Walk,” Pam Sherratt, Horticulture and Crop Science, OSU Extension, and Joe Rimelspach, Plant Pathology, OSU Extension.
After 2 p.m., tour Ohio State’s Howlett Hall and Kottman Hall annual and perennial gardens — more than 550 cultivars in all — at no additional cost. The gardens are less than a mile from the turf center, with transportation to them on your own.
OARDC and OSU Extension are the research and outreach arms, respectively, of Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
For more information about the Ohio Turfgrass Foundation, please contact OTF at 888-683-3445, 740-452-2552 (fax), info@OhioTurfgrass.org (email). www.OhioTurfgrass.org.