Bayer CropScience expands team of technical specialists serving the turf market

Bayer Environmental Science, a division of Bayer CropScience LP, announced Derek Settle, Ph.D., as the newest addition to its growing team of technical service specialists for the turf and ornamentals (T&O) market—known as the Green Solutions Team. Bayer’s Green Solutions Team provides customers the scientific expertise to address their unique business goals and challenges and also helps support the industry as a whole with scientific thought leadership, education and training.


Settle will focus primarily on providing scientific expertise to customers in the southeastern and southwestern U.S., and helping transition new products from development to market. In his role as director of turfgrass programs for the CDGA, Settle successfully promoted turf science as a member benefit to the superintendents of public and private golf courses throughout the Midwest by offering complementary turf diagnostics, research, and communications support.


“Building on our mission of Science for a Better Life, we strive to provide best-in-class solutions that address the unique challenges and needs of our customers and industry partners across each region of the U.S.,” said Jose Milan, head of Bayer’s turf and ornamentals business. “With the addition of Derek Settle to our Green Solutions Team, our customers can leverage the shared knowledge and plant health expertise of four of the nation’s leading T&O industry experts—which we consider a key differentiator in this industry.”


Founded in 2009, Bayer’s Green Solutions Team provides scientific support and technical product training to help regional sales teams, distributors and end-user customers optimize Bayer’s professional T&O products and ensure they are used most effectively. The team’s customer-centric approach goes beyond a product focus, offering  solutions for holistic turf care that take into consideration all aspects of turf management. The Green Solutions specialists also support internal and external technical presentations, develop educational articles and resources, coordinate product demonstration tests, and maintain relationships with university constituents that test and recommend Bayer products.


“Bayer’s commitment to provide top notch solutions goes beyond the development of innovative products,” said Laurence Mudge, manager of the Bayer Green Solutions Team. “We are equally committed to hiring the best people, which is why we are thrilled to welcome Derek to our team. Derek is truly a ‘turf guy’—who brings with him a valuable balance of scientific research and technical expertise as well as a strong background in extension work—having more than six years of experience helping turfgrass professionals prevent and diagnose many of the same challenges our customers face.”


Settle is no stranger to Bayer, having spent seven growing seasons testing and evaluating Bayer fungicides in his work at the CDGA.  With a primary focus on turfgrass diseases that thrive in the Midwest, Derek’s research in this role focused largely on assessing the performance of solutions such as Bayer’s portfolio of StressGard™ FT fungicides. 


“Having met the Green Solutions Team through my role at the CDGA, I jumped at the chance to be a part of this exciting and well-respected group of fellow turf scientists, and to work with the Bayer solutions that have always been top performers in our studies,” said Settle. “In my new role, I look forward to utilizing the expertise I’ve acquired through my post-graduate and professional research for the benefit of superintendents across the country.”


Settle has a doctorate in Plant Pathology from Kansas State University (2004). His post-doctoral research in Plant Pathology with Dr. Lee Burpee and Dr. Paul Raymer at The University of Georgia-Griffin (2005) helped support a USGA-funded study and focused on assessing the susceptibility of seashore paspalum to Sclerotinia homoeocarpa. He holds a Master of Science in Horticulture (2000), as well as a Bachelor of Science in Horticulture with a focus on Landscape Design (1997) from Kansas State University.