How do you teach your crew to recognize the symptoms of turf stress? How do you demonstrate your improved turf conditions to your club manager? And how do you explain to members the importance of the turf management practices you use on their behalf?
Let a picture do the explaining for you.
Because pictures can depict, educate and persuade so well, digital photography is one of the major innovations of the past 10 years that can really help on the job. To encourage turfgrass professionals and students to use their digital cameras more effectively, Wendy Gelernter and Larry Stowell, research directors of PACE Turfgrass Research Institute, announce the creation of the PACE IPM Photo Contest.
Photo submissions must be uploaded at www.paceturf.org between the dates of July 5 and September 15, 2006; winners will be announced Oct. 1, 2006; and all photos submitted (winning or not) will be made available at www.paceturf.org at the PACE Photo Gallery, a digital photo library that is open to the public free of charge.
Photos entered into the contest must illustrate a turf IPM topic, concept or practice. Gelernter and Stowell will judge photographs based on subject matter, their value as an educational or informational tool, and on good photography basics, such as composition, lighting, focus and clarity of image.
“Even if you are new to photography, enter this contest,” Gelernter says. On the PACE Web site, Gelernter and Stowell have made free information available about how to take effective digital photographs.
Each photographer may submit only one digital or scanned photo in jpeg (.jpg) format by registering at the PACE website at www.paceturf.org and logging in to the PACE Photo Gallery no later than Sept. 15. Full contest instructions are also available at the PACE website.
Three winners will be selected. The first-prize winner will receive a Canon Powershot A700 camera or a $300 gift certificate; second prize is a gift certificate for $200, and third prize is a $100 gift certificate, all from 47th Street Photo.
All photos submitted for the PACE IPM Photo Contest will be made available at www.paceturf.org in the PACE Photo Gallery and may be used by any interested person for non-profit educational purposes.
For more information, visit the PACE website at www.paceturf.org