Magazine: 2009 New Zealand Turf Conference and Trade Show Wrap Up
By Simon Kars & Rob Jenkins in Shows and seminars on 2nd Jul 2009 6:00
A cold, wet, windy and sometimes foggy Auckland played host to the NZ Turf show for the first time at the Ellerslie Event Centre. The bad weather didn’t dampen any spirits as the superbly run show headed by event manager Tiffany Smith, ran without a flaw over the two da
ys.
The event centre was a great location set on the famous Auckland racecourse. Special mention must go to the team at the centre who took care of everyone’s needs and made sure, along with the tireless Tiffany that everything ran without a hitch. Fabulous food and speedy clean up was the norm throughout the two trade days and conference dinner.
The trade show was comprised of 35 different companies who all had tidy booths with well presented stands. Many companies go to great lengths setting up booths. Most stands were impressive with huge banners, large LCD
televisions, interactive computers, thousands of informative brochures and countless items of stock and machinery. Each company must be congratulated on their efforts and the expense that goes into the trade show. We apologise for any company we didn’t have a chance to chat with and include in our wrap up, but running our own stand ate up a little bit of time.
One of the first companies we had the pleasure o
f chatting to were the Maccaferri NZ team; our booth neighbors displayed their great range of innovative products. Products such as popular bunker matting, have cemented the local Auckland Company’s popularity. One of their products the Eco Rain caught our eye; in short it’s a textile irrigation mat. The mat works by polyethylene tubes with integrated pressure compensated drippers; these are wrapped with a special textile fleece and sewn into two further layers of the non woven fabric. What does all this actually
mean then? Well, you build this mat into your profile, and provide the root system with even consistent water that the roots can grow down to. The award winning idea can save up to 70% on water and has 60 years durability. Anything that can give you a 100% even water distribution and boasts no water loss is well worth a look into.
A turf trade show isn’t a turf trade show without some turf rolled out in at least one stand- and Cervadon was that stand displayin
g the couch cultivar ‘AgriDark’. It is said to be the number one couch going round with much interest shown from major stadiums and golf courses in the Oceania region. AgriDark is a temperate-climate Indian doad that begins growth earlier in spring, and grows longer into autumn in comparison to other couches on the market. AgriDark also possesses an aesthetic dark green colour, is drought tolerant, establishes rapidly, repairs rapidly, and possesses a dense turf surface. Many experts in the turf industry state that Agridark is the best couch on the market including Alan Turvey of Mirimar Golf Course, NZ and Jon Bonner of City Care and Divisional Parks, Bay of Plenty, NZ.
One of our next stops was the tidy looking PGG Wrightson Turf booth. I’ll be perfectly honest on what caught my eye- it was the DG Turf man figurines being handed out! I was lured in like a kid in a candy store. Who hasn’t always wanted their own superhero turf action man? In his own comic strip DG Turfman can set rates, spread the fertilizer and water and all with his ironman like suit. DG Turfman is the face of Nutri DG which is a dispersing granular fertilizer. Nutri DG disperses in 10 minutes after contact with water this unique feature stops mower pick up, runoff from heavy rain and most importantly stops it sticking to balls on greens. PGG had an army of helpful reps on hand over both days to answer any questions.
Across from PGG was the impressive John Deere stand. One of Pitchcare’s good friends John Tutchen was on hand to show us around and have a chat about Farm Services and the green machines. New on the famous green fleet are the quick adjust cutting heads. The cutting heads will be a huge time saver as in the time it previously took to adjust height-of-cut on one mower; you can now set an entire fleet. The John Deere Quick Adjust Cutting Units featuring the patented Speed Link system allows one-thousandth-of-an-inch adjustments to be made to both sides of the roller simultaneously, with only a power drill required to make the change.
Directly opposite the Pitchcare Oceania booth were the exhibitors from AgriSea New Zealand Ltd promoting the benefits of their product AgriSea Soil Nutrition to the turf industry. The company collects and processes an indigenous sea weed (Ecklonia radiate) which is rich in minerals and micro-nutrients, providing excellent turf nutrition when applied at appropriate rates. Benefits to turf using AgriSea Soil Nutrition include; a thicker sward, increased root mass, more fibre and nutrients and faster recovery from drought. AgriSea is the ‘Rolls Royce’ of seaweed products in the world, offering high nutrition and excellent value.
A walk arou
nd the back end of the show brought me to the Kubota New Zealand. An impressive ZD zero turn diesel mower was on the stand. The ZD331 apart from looking like heaps of fun, dishes out a cool 31 horsepower from the reliable Kubota engine, with a 72” deck they are built for cutting grass.
Root Shoots and Fruits Ltd illustrated the importance of Mycorrihizae fungi in the turf industry to improve the plant's ability to utilize soil resources. Mycorrhizae and plants possess a symbiotic relationship which enables plants to absorb macro and micro nutrients required more effectively. The Mycorrhizae allows ‘hard to capture’ nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous to be transformed into uptake-able forms for plant growth. The company’s product Mycormax contains endo and ecto Mycorrhizae increasing the plants absorbing area 10 to 1000 times, whilst improving soil structure and porosity. Mycormax is also totally harmless to both humans and wildlife, and is environmentally friendly.
The helpful girls at New Zealand’s Sports Turf Industry Training Organization where only a hop skip and jump away. The girls and Baz Woodcock are responsible for producing fine turf managers all over NZ. From certificates in sports turf to amenity turf maintenance, they can help you with all your training needs. Head to
www.nzstito.org.nz to have a browse on what they can offer you.
A little further on was everyone’s favourite friendly neighborhood line marking man John Carr, from Fleet Australasia. John was displaying the Beamrider which is the most advanced line marker in the world. Working off lasers the Beamrider will ensure your line is dead straight all day long. Think of this, you can mark out a 120 metre line in approximately 2 minutes using no string and no need to worry about making a wobble or mistake! John also showed off his paint which is
making a name for itself for high quality bright long lasting lines. Also making its world premiere was Fleet’s new Rok a ride own line marker that the famous Kombi attaches onto. Keep an eye out for more on the Rok in a future story.
Turf Aeration NZ had a great stand for the simple fact that it contained the GP Air. Anyone who hasn’t seen this amazing machine in action should try and get along to a demo. The GP Air penetrates deep into the surface profile and releases a blast of compressed air which lifts and shatters the compressed soil. Watching it in action is seeing and believing. It’s easy to see the GP Air becoming a house hold name in the near future.
Powerturf and Jacobsen made up a large stand in the middle of the show. We were keen to get a closer look at the new Eclipse walk behind mower and the massive R-311 which towered over all. The R-311 is a wide area rotary mower which packs a 44.6 horsepower Kubota engine, with both floating wings down it cuts a width of 134”, all this adds up to 10.4 acres an hour. It looked both stylish and comfy to top it all off. The Eclipse walk behind mowers are quickly making a name for themselves, with this machine it’s possible to control the frequency of your clip- which is a huge bonus. The mower also has a tidy floating cutting head to cut out scalping. The more observant type will also notice the engine has been turned on its side, a trend which should continue as it makes a lot of sense.
Over at Hunter they showcased the new I-35 which is the latest in rotor technology. With three levels of watering on a triple port nozzle it will cover all your close areas as well as those far away, with a height of 6” it looks a tasty little rotor.
Up from Christchurch were the guys from DLF Seeds. DLF are one company who put a lot back into the industry with large amounts spent on the science of improving seeds and turf. DLF have trial plots over Auckland, Melbourne and Christchurch- seeds such as Bluegrasses, Fescues, Ryegrass and Browntop are just a few of what they sell.
New Zealand’s own Trimax Mowing Systems who export their famous mowers around the world, were out in force. The Procut, Stealth and as ever the impressive Pegasus where on display in the popular booth. The Pegasus is a rear mounted PTO powered rotary mower with a cutting width of over 6 meters- making it the daddy of this great range.
It was also good to see Turf Tec over all the way from Perth, adding to the Aussie contingent who had flown over for the show. Director Glen Shaw spoke of how well the company had been going in New Zealand and his commitment to the local NZ market. Poor Glen and his lovely wife had the misfortune of being next door to the Pitchcare team in our hotel- so apologies aplenty.
The tireless team of the NZ Sports Turf Institute put on a great booth with plenty of fact sheets and a fun quiz. The team were busy all trade show juggling speaking duties for different streams over the week and running their stand. The knowledgeable team gave some great talks on earthworm control after the recent banning of Endosulfan. A widely used chemical over the years, it was good to hear of alternative approaches and other chemical applications such as Carbendazim, which are suitable replacements to the out dated chemical. The popular Megan Cushnahan runs some great workshops on diseases, with people having a chat with her throughout the trade show. A great show for the team at
www.nzsti.org.nz
Turftech is the ‘new name in turf management’ in New Zealand, their stand was located close to Pitchcare Oceania. The company is a leader in the field of turf management specialising in golf course management, sport feilds management, turf renovation services, horticulture, private and commercial lawn care. The company is also in a position to offer one-off specialist services such as coring, verti-draining, seeding and top-dressing or they can provide a complete maintenance on a contract basis. The business has been responsible for maintenance of Gulf Harbour Country Club, Formosa Auckland Country Club and more recently Whangarei Golf Club, whilst providing their services to sports field clients such as Rangitoto Collage, Auckland University, Kings Collage and Waitakere City Council. Turftech also possesses a contract with Fletcher Living providing lawn care establishment and maintenance services at new homes in St Johns, Auckland.
Sportcrete provides porous synthetic sports bases for all sports, with its Bunker Liner System generating great interest at the show. The company uses advanced chemical engineering in combination with specified aggregates to provide hard, stable, porous, and durable bases for synthetic grass sports fields and underlayments for golf bunkers. The patented, environmentally-friendly Sportcrete material is sprayed on 50mm of specified stone creating an engineered porous base that approaches the PSI strength of concrete, as well as a drainage flow rate of water tested at 2500mm. The company displayed a showcase of the Bunker Liner System which showed the effectiveness of their techniques and products in bunker lining, drainage and sand retention. The Sports Base System is very cost effective compared to Asphalt and concrete, whilst being quick to install, free draining to 200mm/m2/Hr, shock absorbing and environmentally friendly.
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The trade show wound up on Tuesday night with the TORO conference dinner and show, providing a good feed and excellent entertainment in the form of hypnotist, Dave Upfold. No one really knew what was going to happen during the hypnotist’s show- but by the end everyone was left shocked and sore from non stop laughing. The show saw four volunteers being hypnotised and doing acts which provided comedy and entertainment value. This included one male hypnotised volunteer coming down off the stage to approach Rob, sit in his lap and start rubbing his gluteus maximus in Rob’s lap with some aggression! This part of the show was most liked by many who know Rob. In general the night was a major success, enjoyed by all who attended.
Pitchcare Oceania thoroughly enjoyed the conference and we thank all the organisers including an extra big thanks to event manager, Tiffany Smith. We also congratulate all who participated in the show and hope they enjoyed it much as we did.
Kind Regards,
Rob and Simon
| There are 2 comments on this article |
02 Jul 09 by Sumomosr
Great to see you guys over here. Come back soon!
GOGGA
05 Jul 09 by Peter Bass
Come back to Australia don't waste your time in sheep land! 
You Can't Handle The Truth. Bass atYa
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ys.
televisions, interactive computers, thousands of informative brochures and countless items of stock and machinery. Each company must be congratulated on their efforts and the expense that goes into the trade show. We apologise for any company we didn’t have a chance to chat with and include in our wrap up, but running our own stand ate up a little bit of time.
f chatting to were the Maccaferri NZ team; our booth neighbors displayed their great range of innovative products. Products such as popular bunker matting, have cemented the local Auckland Company’s popularity. One of their products the Eco Rain caught our eye; in short it’s a textile irrigation mat. The mat works by polyethylene tubes with integrated pressure compensated drippers; these are wrapped with a special textile fleece and sewn into two further layers of the non woven fabric. What does all this actually 
mean then? Well, you build this mat into your profile, and provide the root system with even consistent water that the roots can grow down to. The award winning idea can save up to 70% on water and has 60 years durability. Anything that can give you a 100% even water distribution and boasts no water loss is well worth a look into.
g the couch cultivar ‘AgriDark’. It is said to be the number one couch going round with much interest shown from major stadiums and golf courses in the Oceania region. AgriDark is a temperate-climate Indian doad that begins growth earlier in spring, and grows longer into autumn in comparison to other couches on the market. AgriDark also possesses an aesthetic dark green colour, is drought tolerant, establishes rapidly, repairs rapidly, and possesses a dense turf surface. Many experts in the turf industry state that Agridark is the best couch on the market including Alan Turvey of Mirimar Golf Course, NZ and Jon Bonner of City Care and Divisional Parks, Bay of Plenty, NZ.
nd the back end of the show brought me to the Kubota New Zealand. An impressive ZD zero turn diesel mower was on the stand. The ZD331 apart from looking like heaps of fun, dishes out a cool 31 horsepower from the reliable Kubota engine, with a 72” deck they are built for cutting grass.
making a name for itself for high quality bright long lasting lines. Also making its world premiere was Fleet’s new Rok a ride own line marker that the famous Kombi attaches onto. Keep an eye out for more on the Rok in a future story.
