2022 Ozark Turf Association Education Day a Success

The 2022 OTA Education Day presented by FMC was a big success as we had the largest attendance to date. We had 62 members, vendor partners, students and speakers at the event held at Highland Springs Country Club.

The event featured presentations by Mike Williams, VP of Product Development at Custom Agronomics, where he talked about how to develop nutritional strategies for turf grasses for both foliar and granular products. He also gave a presentation on Surfactant Chemistry.

Our next speaker was Dr. Marissa Weaver, who gave a presentation on “Building Relationships and Influencing Others to Meet Your Goals” It touched on a variety of ways we could reach out and network no matter our audience. It is always good to have a presentation dealing with other tips and solutions to make us better overall managers.

New GCSAA - Central Field Representative, Randy Robinson gave an update on changes to existing programs and introduced new programs at GCSAA. It was his first chance to introduce himself as Steve Randall’s replacement as now Steve is concentrating on the overall GCSAA Field Staff program.

Our final speaker was Matt Giese, technical representative for Syngenta who presented “Date Driven Decisions for Controlling Dollar Spot”. Information and resources were shared on how to use data to help make application decisions on the golf course. The discussion also highlighted other uses of data that are available to make smart decisions on other problem issues, such as applying PGR’s and preemergent controls for weeds and diseases.

We would like to thank all that attended, especially our new FMC representative Matt Bradley, who handed out some Kalida swag via a raffle. Winners of Kalida shirts were Scott Hendrickson, assistant superintendent at Hickory Hills Country Club, and Jacob Scott, assistant superintendent at Top of the Rock Golf Course. Winners of Kalida hats were Kevin Taylor, superintendent at Whispering Oaks Golf Course, Eugene Jesse, assistant superintendent at Osage National Golf Resort, and Clayton Oetting, AIT at Ledgestone Country Club

Other companies represented were VanWall, Trimax Mowers, Redexim Turf Products, Brotcke Well and Pump, Specialty Sands and Services, Advanced Turf, PBI Gordon, Corteva, GreensPro, SePro, and Precision Turf Products. We thank all these vendor partners for supporting the OTA and members.

Thanks also go out to this year’s Educations Committe Chairman, Mark Slaughter of GreensPro and the staff of Highland Springs Country Club. Preliminary plans have begun for next year’s event. Watch for the date on the Calendar.