On Friday November 27th the first year class of turfgrass management students at the University of Guelph held a symposium at the Guelph Cutten Club. The symposium featured 3 excellent speakers and a short video and speech on Syngenta. Our class of approximately 30 students raised almost five thousand dollars and had 120 filled seats of superintendents, lawn care specialist, and many more industry professionals.
The three speakers were Dr. Tom Hsiang who is a disease professor at the University of Guelph who spoke on some organic methods to controlling turf diseases, Ron Scheidel, president and co-owner of GreenHorizons Sod Farm who spoke on his family business and how they have diversified over the years, and Keith Bartlett, superintendent of St. Georges Golf Club who spoke on maintenance he is doing to prepare for the 2010 Canadian Open. All the speakers were great and well appreciated by the audience.
My personal favorite was Keith Bartlett’s presentation on how St. Georges is preparing for the Open. He emphasized on doing things right if you are going to major projects. I also had the opportunity to speak with Keith about possibly doing my summer internship at St. Georges which I believe would be a great experience for myself. To work on and make a product for PGA golfers to play on would be unbelievable. He also stated there would be nothing happening to the 3rd green for the Open.
