GIS 2013- San Diego

Firstly let me apologise to everyone about the lateness of my post. Ever since I got back form the US its been flat out with follow ups and trial work. Enough about me onto the show.

This year the US turf conference commonly known as GIS was in San Diego California on the west coast. I’ve never been there before so I decided to drive from LA to San Diego to take in the scenery. Its a nice 2.5 hr drive and half of it you have the coast on the right side. The drive was made even better with the rental car. I asked for an upgrade and for a small amount hey gave me a 2013 Chevy Camero (seen below).

If you ever get to San Diego it would be an idea to see the USS Midway an old aircraft carrier they have docked there and now turned into a museum. These things are huge but very cramped for the crew who work on them. They also had a display of the war planes. What I really liked was that for the tour guides they were all ex Navy/army so you get a real life perspective on what they went through. Well worth it.

GIS Show and Education Conference

This year education conference as always is packed with great seminars and there are always too many to choose from. I attended the following over the week

Managing Creeping Bentgrass in a summer decline complex- this was great in giving you solutions to common problems that you may not of thought of. It was the first year of this seminar so if you do attend next year well worth to check it out.

Using Wetting Agents- this gave a good understanding of the products available and more importantly in the causes of dry patch

Weed Control in warm season grasses- this concentrated on new products coming out in the US more so than other aspects but there was a good discussion on herbicide resistance which is a reality not just in the US but here in Australia.

Understanding Turfgrass fungicides (This was a highlight with Richard Latin from Purdue University). It gave you a good understanding of dealing with the pathogen and how the chemical attacks it. Alot more in depth than what I first thought.

If anyone wants to discuss these topics please let me know.

The actual show this year was smaller than previous years I thought but done well. The US golf industry is slowly turning the corner as there were quite a few new displays. Just over 13,000 attended the show which was a little down but expected as the west coast is a smaller market overall. The show covered 1.6 hectares of floor space.

I don’t have many pictures from the show itself as the stands looked very similar to last season but here a few pics that stand out from the city and the show.

Jacobsen taxis in their colours which was quite unique.

Wheels for your golf cart

View coming down the escalator at the conference centre

Me and Pat Jones of GCI magazine.. Really nice guy and has a great magazine called Golf Course Industry. There is a printed version as well as an ipad and iphone version. Well worth a read

Social Media The biggest highlight

However the biggest highlight of the week besides the education was the social aspect. Not the aspect you are thinking but from a social media side. There were 3 events I went to all organised via Twitter no email, phone or printed invite just via twitter. You all know that I do quite a bit of social media and I wanted to show you the reason why I like it so much. Suffice to say if it wasn’t for twitter I would not be able to meet all these people in the pictures below and would not be able to call them my friends.

As I mentioned there were 3 events the first was organised by @pheasanturf. He suggested we all meet at a pub on the Monday after the seminars. This was all organised on twitter. What looked like about 6 of us turned into about 40 of us throughout the night. It was great to meet alot of the supers I speak to face to face. We all agreed if it wasn’t for twitter we would not be there right now.

Here are a few pics form the night

A note here face to face interaction is still the best way to communicate and I would never give that up. Social Media gives us an easy an convenient way when we can’t see each other all the time.

My next social media event was the @gcimagazine Tweetup awards which were held for the second time. This year we were indoors thanks to Aquatrols. There were a few different categorie winners and all the winners can be seen by clicking on this link

http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/gci-020613-tweet-up-awards.aspx

A few pictures from the awards ceremony:

Lastly I was invited to a Wives of Turf Function (yes husbands were allowed to attend).

The “Wives of Turf is an online community for the wives of men in the turf industry. This is a place for wives to come for support and camaraderie for everything from the little things like cleaning up after our Men of Turf to the life altering events that sometimes come as a part of the turf lifestyle”.

It a great organisation and support group that any supers wife can join. There are no fees or anything like that just wives of supers who communicate with each other via twitter and facebook. If your wife is interested in becoming a part of it click on their website here

Twitter handle is @wivesofturf

Some of the wives at the function

Here I am with the founder of Wives of Turf (Mychal) and @iturfapps (Bill).

There was so much information I picked up on the trip and I will be including that in future posts on turf management. I also picked up some new apps that myself and Robin Doodson will be working on in the next coming months so watch out for that.

But for now thanks for reading this post. I’ll finish off with this that i saw in Hawaii on the way back.

Regards

Nadeem Zreikat

Colin Campbell (Chemicals) Pty Ltd