President’s Message Wow, what a summer! If most guys around the state are in the same boat as me it’s been quite a summer. We started out having spring transitions issues due to some cold temperature damage/winter kill. Once we decided that there were areas that just weren’t coming back it was time to get out the sod cutters. Now hold on, our colleagues in the sod production business were running into the same issues and now we have a shortage of replacement sod to work with. Fun Summer Ha Ha! I know many of you had an opportunity to come to the Field Day at Toyota Stadium in Frisco in late M ay to see an impressive new field renovation technique. “Man talking about taking a field down to the nub.” But, according Region I Director Allen Reed, CSFM with a little extra fertilizer, topdressing, time and water and the fields came b ack fast and in great shape for future beat downs. We had Field Day on June 12 on the south side of Houston at the Angelton ISD Facilities. Thanks to Rudy Santos for hosting that event and also thanks to Josh Scott our Region III Director for p utting the event together. A special thanks to Dr. Casey Reynolds for coming down and giving a presentation on putting together an Annual Field Maintenance Calendar and fertilizer options. Our latest Field Day took place in San Antonio on August 5 at St. M ary’s University. We had a few guys show up for a short round table discussion on challenges everyone h ad faced up to that point in the year. We then had a presentation from the contractor that built the baseball stadium recently at St. Mary’s and the challenges that were encountered during the project. We took a tour of the athletic fields of St. M arys and then went back inside for lunch and other presentations from (SAWS) San Antonio Water System, another talk on Fire Ant control and our last presentation was on Beneficial Insect use. Thanks to Michael Pinon our Region II Director and St. Mary’s University for hosting our event. Thanks to Tim Lousch who was a big help in putting this field day together, also. It looks like summer is winding down (according to the calendar) but it never fails those hot summer days still seem to linger into late September. Hopefully most of you survived the summer d rought (some were lucky enough to get some timely summer rains). I h ope we are all b etter managers of our turf now, because of the always challenging curves that M other Nature throws our way. Our main goal as a b oard is to try and provide as many quality educational opportunities for our membership as we can. We are always looking for members to step up and offer their facilities to host those events. If you think you would be interested in hosting an event please call one of your board members and let’s discuss it. Sincerely your friend in Turf, Rusty Walker, CSFM Athletic Field Foreman City of Grapevine
The Texas Sports Turf Managers Association (TXSTMA) is comprised of professional turf managers from colleges and universities, parks and recreation, school districts, private facilities, professional sports, researchers, commercial suppliers and students working in or interested in sports turf management.