Listen, learn, solve

Meet the passionate, dedicated and creative members of the AQUA-AID Solutions team.

June 8, 2018

A new era: Introducing AQUA-AID Solutions

Industry veterans are quick to declare turfgrass management as a people business. Here’s a look at the people behind AQUA-AID Solutions and how they are using their backgrounds to help golf course superintendents and other turf managers handle the challenges of establishing and maintaining quality surfaces.

Sam Green, President

Hailing from humble beginnings in rural Virginia, Sam Green has traveled the world since joining the AQUA-AID Solutions team in 2013. The journeys and conversations are inspiring Green, a former golf course superintendent, to work with colleagues to assist turf managers at facilities of all levels.

“The travel is an opportunity to learn,” Green says. “I was very fortunate in my superintendent career. I had the resources that I needed at most of my jobs. When you go around with the distributors and visit end users, you see tremendous properties maintained and manicured to the ‘T,’ and then you realize they don’t have the resources. You listen to what they tell you. You learn a tremendous amount about the people in this industry. That gives you a better platform to help people. With the way our team travels and interacts with the end users, we stay on top of what’s going on. It’s a world market and we’re very fortunate as a company to delve into that world market.”

Bert Brace, Vice President

Bert Brace has seen the industry from a variety of angles in his long tenure with AQUA-AID Solutions. One of the biggest changes, Brace says, is how companies such as AQUA-AID Solutions are using successful superintendents to help build their businesses.

“The pure salesmanship with today’s social world just doesn’t kick it,” Brace says. “You can’t be a pure salesman and think you are going to go out and service people like you did 20 years ago. You’re seeing a lot of people leave the industry and companies are getting superintendents to be reps. That’s our goal to get people that have walked the walk and done these practices talking with their peers. You need generations that talk with that same generation.”

Brian Daniel, CGCS

Covering a giant territory consisting of the western United States and Canada, Brian Daniel relishes visiting a group of people he can easily relate to: golf course superintendents. Daniel spent more than 25 years as a Texas superintendent before moving into a role that allows him to find solutions for his peers.

“My favorite thing to do is to ride with distributors, see golf courses and meet superintendents,” Daniel says. “It’s almost like we have our own language. We just instantly have a lot in common and a lot to talk about. I would think that somebody that doesn’t have a golf background would really struggle to walk into a group of people that do, because it’s almost like we are talking another language. It’s just a camaraderie. You have been there. You know how it is when you have an irrigation line blow out on a Friday afternoon or there’s a huge cold front coming in and you need to get your group to go out and cover your greens on Saturday night at 8 o’clock. It’s a unique set of problems that we deal with and having that experience in the same issues makes us all kind of bond.”

Mark Langner, CGCS

As director of agronomy for 12 years at Farm Links in Sylacauga, Ala., Mark Langner educated hundreds of superintendents who annually toured the property. He’s now using a zest for helping turf managers in his own visits to golf courses and athletic fields.

“The fun part is being able to share all the things that we are learning with everybody else so that more and more people can have success in an industry that’s much tougher,” Langner says. “Let’s be honest, I went through some tough periods in it as a superintendent and I also went through some glory days in it as well. There are a lot of good, smart people out there who have a lot of good information to share. We know it takes more than one tool in the toolbox to help these guys be successful. Mr. (Bill) Eason has built his whole business and his whole career on listening to superintendents and turf managers tell the story of the problems they are having and then he goes out and finds the solution. That’s how we are continuing to be set up, hearing what the problems are, what the needs are and putting the product in place.”

Bill Brown, CGCS

A former golf course superintendent in the Philadelphia area with extensive multimedia experience, Bill Brown joined the AQUA-AID Solutions team in 2016. He brings a combination of turf management, business and digital skills to the company.

“When I visit properties, it’s not just, ‘Hey, we have a product that you can fix your problem with,’” Brown says. “We want to be a solutions provider to the turf manager. That may not be our product; it may just be helping them. But they will always be coming back to us. Being the mid-level superintendent and always having the high expectations of those properties and being able to find solutions is really what I feel like what I bring to the table for the properties I visit and AQUA-AID Solutions. From a digital standpoint, I sort of worked every aspect of the industry. I have the superintendent, media, digital, mobile app development, so I also bring that holistic knowledge to the table.”

Sam Stimmel

After taking a detour from the turf industry, Sam Stimmel joined the AQUA-AID Solutions team late last year. He considers fertility and soils his “sweet spot,” and offers extensive experience in building relationships with distributors.

“I wanted to be able to use my experience working with distribution, working with new technologies, and pioneering products and geographic areas,” Stimmel says. “I thought here’s a company that I could offer a lot to and have fun doing it. I bring the distribution side experience as we are growing from being family run to the next level. Not that there’s anything negative about family run, but we have more people now and we are covering a bigger footprint and new products. I am being asked to support a structured growth.”

Guy Cipriano is GCI’s senior editor.

AQUA-AID rebrands as AQUA-AID Solutions

New platform will help growing company deliver a diverse portfolio of solutions to turfgrass managers.

June 8, 2018

GCI Staff

A new era: Introducing AQUA-AID Solutions

Thirty-five years of industry leadership will continue as AQUA-AID rebrands with a modernized look and name, AQUA-AID Solutions. The rebrand reflects more than 30 years of successfully delivering high-value solutions to turf managers, while looking into the future with the growth incurred over the past five years within the business.

AQUA-AID Solutions’ portfolio delivers innovative technologies that focus on each element of a successful turfgrass system: water, air, soil and sunlight. AQUA-AID Solutions has the ability to provide synergistic moisture management, biological, soil and cultural solutions within their portfolio of products. Each technology provides long-lasting agronomic value and improve aesthetics and playability on turfgrass systems in the golf and sports field arena.

“We can touch any part of a turf managers’ agronomic program and deliver a solution to the challenges they may be facing,” says Sam Green, President of AQUA-AID Solutions. “This new platform will allow us to continue our mission of delivering unique technological advanced products to support agronomic programs while reducing environmental impact.”

Along with a new name and logo, AQUA-AID Solutions launches a new website, aquaaidsolutions.com. The website will not only highlight its portfolio of solutions, but showcase key research completed over the years that solidifies several products in the category of Best-In-Class for turf managers. Turf managers can follow continued updates on social media under AQUA-AID Solutions’ new Twitter, Instagram and Facebook handles: @Solutions4Turf.

Established in 1986, AQUA-AID Solutions (formerly AQUA-AID) provided soil surfactant solutions within the turf industry. Within the last decade, AQUA-AID Solutions expanded their portfolio with Verde-Cal Products (enhanced lime, gypsum and potassium products), Imants and Vredo equipment, and most recently Worm Power Turf.

AQUA-AID Solutions is looking forward to the future and being able to continue delivering customized innovations that solve turf and ornamental challenges by improving soil and plant health for agronomic programs around the globe.

The right fit

How matching solutions with needs helped a Connecticut superintendent boost the turf on key parts of a classic course.

June 8, 2018

Kurt Kleinham

A new era: Introducing AQUA-AID Solutions

When Doug Drugo started as superintendent at Wee Burn Country Club in Darien, Conn., about 15 years ago, he took on a large isolated dry spot across his fairways, he says.

As an 18-hole private club with a membership of about 750, any trouble areas in the fairways would be noticeable.

“We really fought the isolated dry spots in the fairways. Even shortly after rains, it was just really hard to get it to correct,” he says. “There was a lot of hand-watering of fairway areas, which is a lot. We have a lot of fairway acreage for a Northeast club. We spray 35 acres, and that includes our intermediate cut.”

Right about the time he was looking for solutions for the dry fairway, AQUA-AID Solutions’ OARS product came on the market, he says. “We started to spray just to try to find something that would rectify it for us, and that seemed to be the product that worked the best for us on our fairways at that point in time,” he adds.

The product became a regular part of his team’s rotation, spraying monthly at about 6 ounces per 1,000 square feet, with a 1.5-gallon carrier, watered in, he says. “That would get us at least 30 days,” Drugo says. “A little bit longer when we tried to overlap it, so we didn't have the issue pop back up.”

Using OARS, he and his crew were able to get away from the necessity of hand-watering those fairway areas, he says. Though he doesn’t have specific numbers about how much labor it saves, “it’s been a drastic difference where we’ve utilized that. Instead of having four to five guys hand-watering the fairway, they can be doing something else more productive to make an improvement rather than run around with a hose.”

Eventually, he started injecting the product into the course’s irrigation system based on flow volume at his pump station, to cover all of his turf and control watering issues before they become a problem, he says. If there’s a spell of dry weather, his team might go out with an additional lighter application of about 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet, but that’s rare at this point.

Drugo treats the product like a regular line item for the budget, another resource to keep turf up to player expectations, he says. “It’s something we needed to do,” he says. “It’s a tool that we need to use, and fortunately, we have the resources to be able to use it.”

Chuck Breitenbach, vice president of sales for The Hill Company, a distributor in Cincinnati, Ohio, says both OARS products, OARS HS and OARS PS, are some of the top sellers among AQUA-AID Solutions products he offers.

“Both of them will hold water, but the PS has a penetrant in it that’s going to help drive water,” he says. “With the PS, you’re going to have the capability of drying [greens] out for a tournament, but you’ll also have the ability to rewet them.

"With the HS, that's going to be more of maybe a medium-range club that doesn’t have all the labor they need for hand-watering,” he says. “We can't keep them firm and fast day in and day out because we're operating with a crew of seven. So those would be the biggest products on greens.”

For fairways, he sees a lot of use of PBS150, a long-term surfactant that can be used at relatively the same rates, with about 150 days of activity as compared to about 90, he says. He'll do a cost-analysis with clients to get to the details.

“Yes, this costs more from a case standpoint, but when you break it down to what your cost is per acre per day of activity you're getting, it’s actually less,” he says. “You have several chemistries doing different things. It allows you to have a balance to hold moisture in the root zone, but also keep that top inch relatively firm in the fairways.”

The most important goal for Breitenbach is to match the right product and technology to the superintendent’s needs, he says. To figure out the right product for the situation, he asks superintendents a few questions.

“Those questions being: What are you looking to get out of this application? What results are you looking for?” he says. “At the end of the day, that's where most problems occur, is the wrong type of technology used in the wrong place on the golf course. They’re using something that’s holding water at a maximum and they’re putting it on the greens, and you don’t know, the next 30 days might be extremely wet. Now you’re compounding the problem.”

Superintendents should be using one product to dry out greens to get them firm and fast for a two-week time span for tournaments, and another to boost holding capability to make up for the labor for hand-watering, Breitenbach says.

A question about budgeting comes into play to determine if it makes sense to only use products on greens, or if there's room to expand to fairways as well. If it’s a matter of convincing the members or a committee, Breitenbach suggests trying the product out on half of one fairway so they can see the difference compared to the rest of the course.

Surfactants can also help in uncovering opportunities to save water on the course, he says.

“I have a couple customers who are in situations where they spend a fair amount of money in a year’s time on water,” he says. “When you show them how much money they can save, then it becomes really a no-brainer for them to incorporate it into their program.”

But to find those connections between the right product and a need like large isolated dry spots across a fairway or a wet green, Breitenbach has to know where the trouble lies, he says. That means that superintendents should take a moment to consider what they’re looking to achieve.

“I'm going to always revert back to ‘What does the superintendent want?’” he says. “To me, everything goes back to that first question. What are you trying to accomplish agronomically?”

Kurt Kleinham is a contributing editor from Akron, Ohio.

Preventative Medicine

It’s looking to be a challenge turf season. UPI’s Bret Corbett outlines summer disease pressure, as well as how to get a leg up on future infestation.

June 7, 2018

Today’s Turf Solutions powered by UPI Turf

We’re seeing Summer 2018 bring some extreme temperatures to some portions of the country, while others are seeing pretty heavy rains. Superintendents have been pretty consumed with keeping up with mowing fairways and roughs due to a quick green up. What sorts of pest and disease pressure are you beginning to see, or that superintendents can expect to see on their courses?
Well, I can’t speak for everywhere, but I know in the Carolinas everything has taken off in the last few weeks. We are seeing a lot of fire ants and white grub’s due to the high temperatures and heavy rains. I have also seen a lot of disease pressure this year. With not having much of a spring and the hot humid raining weather, dollar spot and brown patch are everywhere. Also crabgrass is out of control! Many applicators were a little late with pre-emergence this year and missed this window for control. In the northeast and southeast, not only crabgrass has emerged with a vengeance this year, but also green kyllinga and other sedges are growing rapidly, as well.

If superintendents missed their window to pretreat for these pests and diseases, how do you suggest they attack an outbreak or infestation?
Post emergent herbicide applications and curative insecticide applications are a must. For many of the weeds that have broken through a pre-emergence program, there are several good post emergence products that can help clean up the courses. For insects, it is really important to monitor peak activities before spraying a curative insecticide application.

In the back of most turf managers’ minds is the worry over pesticide resistance. What advice can you offer to help guide supers on how to avoid this issue?
Pesticide resistance is going to be a concern moving forward. I know from talking to turf researchers there is already a number of pests that are resistant to certain pesticides. As a result, superintendents are looking for solutions. Superintendents should pay attention to the pesticide chemistry and look at alternate pesticide modes of action, so they can to rotate chemistry as often as possible. Several researchers have discussed looking back at some of the older chemistries for possible answers, as long as it registered and available for that specific pest use.

As summer play increases, tournament season kicks into full swing, and the stress and pressure of extreme climate conditions sets in, what advice can you offer turf managers to ensure they’re cultivating the healthiest turf possible to resist these stressors and still maintain a playing surface that meets player expectations?
Superintendents and players should both keep in mind that our industry revolves around a living thing. As the extreme conditions set in, turf managers are going to have to make sure they stay on top of a good fungicide program, proper nutrition regiments and water are all in place for their courses. Even things like raising height of cut, rolling greens and skipping a mow helps increase the quality of the turf without sacrificing too much ball roll throughout the summer.

What support can industry suppliers offer turf managers as they deal with extreme climate or disease pressure?
As part of the research and development team at UPI, our goal is to develop pesticide programs and evaluate on various pests at several universities across the U.S. The data we obtain from our trials helps us tweak and modify programs that will work to suppress disease, insect and weed pressure in many different states. We would like to offer superintendents with a working pesticide program that is backed through science and non-biased data.

I know it’s still a good three to four months away, but what advice can you offer about fall prep that superintendents may want to start thinking about now, or begin building a strategy for season’s end?

For turf managers in the north, the summer is a good time to think about snow mold programs and reflect on what worked the best last year. As you recall, we all had a long, cold, hard winter with lots of snow in most areas. I would suggest looking at university research data and planning your program well in advance so when it arrives you are ready to go. For the guys in the south, I would look at fall preemergence herbicide applications as a preventative tool to help knock those pesky winter annuals before they emerge. The one thing that I can say for certain, it will be here before you know it.

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