Down on the farm

Describe FarmLinks.
FarmLinks is an idea by David Pursell (c.e.o. of Pursell Technologies, which operates FarmLinks) that he conceived several years ago. He had an idea to build a golf course used for research. Eventually, our whole marketing program became bringing customers here and offering education and actually doing research on a real golf course. The problem with most traditional research is it has been done on small plots without traffic. We thought it would be cool to become like superintendents – to know their pain and understand them because we operate a golf course. That was the whole idea behind FarmLinks and where it got started.

Jeff Higgins, Ph.D., is executive director of business development for Pursell Technologies.

When was the course built?
Construction started in 2001, and the course opened in June of 2003. The timing of having bentgrass greens versus Bermudagrass greens affected the opening.

What attracted you to FarmLinks?
I started out in the industry with Monsanto. I traveled all over the world and did that for a while but got tired of traveling. The company was getting ready to sell Dimension and did. So for a couple of years, I consulted the Rohm and Haas Co., which bought Dimension. Then when I went to academia as an extension turf specialist at Auburn University. That was more out of a passion for turf because when I got out of school, there weren’t many academic positions available.

A while back, I was playing in a golf tournament with David Pursell. I’ve known the Pursell family for years. He asked me how things were at Auburn and if I was going to retire from there. I told him probably not, and he said he needed a director of marketing. So I said OK. It was that easy. I always had a lot of respect for David. It was a good opportunity in which I could bring some value to the company with my background of product development and testing. I also liked the business aspect of it, so it was a pretty good fit.

How long have you been at FarmLinks?
I’ve been here six years. When I came on board, it was a concept of David’s. He asked me what we had to do to grow our business. Coming from academia as a turf expert, I didn’t know what Polyon was. I thought it was a polymer-coated, sulfur-coated urea. So I said the first thing you have to do is educate the customer about what Polyon is and how to use it. I said the second thing you have to do, because it’s perceived to be expensive, is educate the user about the value of having a fertilizer in which you can make one application that will last all year. That’s not traditional thinking for fertilizer use in this industry. Those were our hurdles.

From that, David’s idea was to bring customers here because it’s much easier to educate a small group in front of them than it would be with traditional means. It’s hard to educate in one advertisement, so we decided to bring small groups down here and conduct research. Now it’s expanded – there are other partners, such as Toro and Syngenta. And there’s much more interest from other companies because they’re saying this strategy makes a lot of sense because it’s really just relationship building. It’s growing into something even bigger.

David’s goal is to turn this place into the Epcot Center of golf or turf management so superintendents can come here and see technologies that are novel, new or ahead of their time.

If you look at what influences superintendents’ purchasing decisions, the No.1 influence is trying the product themselves. They get their hands dirty with it. They look at it, touch it, feel it and test it. No. 2 is going to be their peers. Somebody they know and respect. Somebody who has credibility in their eyes, and who has tested it, tried it and liked it. They value that opinion. From there, it comes down to academics – researchers testing it, third-party testing or sales reps – things that influence them. Seeing it with their own eyes is believing.

Do you plan to stay here for a while?
Yes. Hopefully, we’ll stay in business.

Elaborate about what you did at Auburn.
I had an extension research teaching appointment, so I taught a graduate-level advanced turf management class for turf and horticulture students. I also conducted research to define the program about practical applied research for turf management. I conducted any kind of research that applied to turf management. Another part of my job was to disseminate that information to the superintendents in Alabama – drafting extension pieces and giving presentations at chapter meetings to communicate to them what the research findings were to help them do their jobs better.

What does your job entail now?
My job has evolved. When I came here, it was director of marketing, which was primarily traditional marketing – product pricing, positioning and distribution. Our marketing program evolved into what we initially called the PTI Tour, which was bringing customers here and conducting the training and education and entertaining. So I moved into a role as director of PTI Tours, managing and running the tour. I helped start the tour, which we now call the Experience at FarmLinks, from scratch. I got it up and running and developed the training materials. I was driving the bus, picking up customers at the airport, taking them to play golf, taking them to dinner, cooking breakfast for them the next morning. I did everything, but eventually I got burned out. I was getting to the point where I needed some pressure off me. Currently, I still conduct the training, but my job has evolved a little further.

Then, Gary Hargrove, Ph.D., who’s our chief research-and-development scientist, and I started to look at polymer-coated pesticides to see if they work. We started playing around with polymer-coated pesticides, and it looked like we had something that would work. So we identified acephate as the first one because it is water soluble and unstable at high pH levels. We formulated that one, commercialized it and sold it. Then there became an interest in the company to expound on this Precise business and develop a business around Precise. Then my role became executive director of business development.

What’s the relationship like between you and Mark Langner, the director of agronomy and applied research?

Mark oversees the golf course. Mark and I work closely putting out research trials and ideas. I’ll ask Mark what he thinks about this or that. Most traditional superintendents would be frustrated in Mark’s role because he always has a Ph.D. turf guy looking over his shoulder in addition to 1,000 superintendents criticizing what he’s doing. He’s under the gun. It’s a unique position. But I tease him all the time and tell him he doesn’t know how lucky he is because if he screws up anything he can always say it’s research.

Explain how the research blends with the operation of the course.
When we first started planning FarmLinks, Mike Hurdzan, Ph.D., and I wanted three or four holes to be one grass type and the next three or fours holes another type so you’d have a demonstration of different turf types – cool-season and warm-season turf. We even wanted to do a bentgrass hole. But David Pursell was opposed to that because he was concerned about playability. We finally agreed to do all the greens with the same grass. We then looked at different grasses for fairways and tees.

We have different grasses we demonstrate different fertility and pesticide programs on. Down the road, we’ll probably be adding more research areas such as a warm-season green with seashore paspalum or some of the new seeded zoysiagrasses or maybe even different bentgrass cultivars. Even though we conduct some research demonstration on the golf course greens, it’d be nice to have greens that you can be more aggressive with because if you killed something or turned it yellow, it wouldn’t affect play.

Jeff Higgins says there's a plan to publish an annual report about the research conducted at FarmLinks.

Are you going to add any more holes to the facility?
We talked about adding a nine-hole First Tee facility, which might be a possibility down the road, but before we build another nine or 18 holes, we would probably take some of the existing holes and make conversions if we wanted different grasses or to look at something different.

Whether you’re generating revenue from the golf course or you’re just doing research on it, you still have the maintenance costs to take care of. So before we expand and build another golf course, we’ll probably just increase the research capabilities of the one we’ve got. We’ve already done some of that. Last year, we converted several holes to different grasses. We’ve put in a couple of Tifway hybrid Bermudagrass holes to compare to TifSport. We put in a Zorro zoysiagrass hole because it’s a new fine textured grass, and we put in a seashore paspalum hole.

Does the course close for testing?
We’re closed on Tuesdays, and we try to do all of our test applications then, when there’s nobody in. We’ve had times where some golfers followed treatments, but the number of players is so small that it’s not a problem to work around what few golfers are out there. Most of the play is on weekends.

Elaborate about research projects you’re working on.
We’re looking at the effect of seedbed preparation on overseeding. We’re looking at carbohydrate levels in the turfgrass. We’re conducting an overseeding transition study. We’ve got a Primo study we’re looking at. We’ve got a research project looking at subsurface air cooling the greens versus the surface fans. There are a couple of Precise studies in which we’re looking at different products. Also, we’re doing herbicide and plant growth regulator studies. Some of those are in academic testing as well.

We have a fertility study where we compare all the different nitrogen fertilizer technologies at different rates. Last year, each hole was dedicated to a specific fertilizer. We were looking at economics. How many applications it would take a year. Then we look at the labor cost of those applications. We figure out how many hours it takes and the cost per 1,000 square feet.

The plan is to publish an annual report and send it to the people who have been on the tour. We would probably just give them out free. It would be one of the benefits of coming on the tour.

We’ve had other ideas about how to disseminate the information. Ideally the best way would be if we had a GPS unit on a select few carts to explain the tests audiowise to the superintendents who play the golf course. Then you wouldn’t have to keep track of papers to track what studies are going on because the GPS unit would automatically tell you. That would be the easiest way of communicating all this research. We’ve been looking into that.

What is the biggest research project you’ve worked on?
The discovery of Precise, figuring out how to control the release of pesticides and reduce applicator exposure, is the biggest thing so far. Most of the research that’s occurring on the golf course is more practical, applied things that would help superintendents do their jobs better. Even though we conduct a lot of Precise research, that discovery came about in a laboratory, not necessarily a golf course, but that’s where we’re proving it. The things you’re calling research at FarmLinks would be more applied stuff: looking at mowing heights relative to nitrogen requirements for TifSport; how you manage disease infection on TifSport. We run across problems with these grasses, so our research will revolve around trying to find an answer to those.

Is there another controlled-released pesticide on the market?
I’m not aware of any other technology that can do what were doing, combining pesticides and controlling their release. There are control-release formulations of pesticides that are microencapsulated, taking something that’s not water soluble and encapsulating it so you can suspend it in water and spray it. There are controlled-release formulations but not specifically as a delivery system to regulate the release of a pesticide in a timely manner.

Do you get feedback from superintendents?

We’re starting to do that. There has been an advisory council formed that’s comprised of superintendents from all throughout the country, and they’ll be the sounding board for all this stuff. The first meeting was already held. They will be our eyes and ears to let us know what were doing that’s on track or what we should consider doing differently. We’ve pulled them in the loop versus us just doing what we think is right. We’re going to let them tell us what’s right.

How is FarmLinks supported financially?
We have public play, but the course wasn’t built for profit. The partners that participate in the Experience at FarmLinks contribute products and/or funding to participate, and the level of participation and funding is different. Our company, PTI, also is a partner. That’s how the funding is procured to support the operation of the golf course and for contract research. For example, if company A wanted to do a confidentiality research project, FarmLinks might be a site where they can get those research studies conducted.

Is there discussion to let more partners in?
There’s some discussion about what that should look like, and that will be an initiative by the advisory council of superintendents. The objective is to introduce novel products, showing new technology that’s applicable and valuable to superintendents. It’s not really about funding per se, because if it was all about funding, you could just open the partnership to anybody and have a tiered approach, depending on how much exposure a supplier wanted and what it would cost. It’s more about making sure the products that are shown are novel, have value and are of interest to superintendents.

We’ve tried to keep it where, for instance, Toro is our equipment and irrigation partner. So we wouldn’t go to John Deere or Jacobsen as long as Toro is a partner. We give them that exclusive right to be a partner. As you go to the smaller-level players, you might have some overlapping products. We might have more than one supplier that makes a data collection device or a specific aerification tine that’s unique or novel.

So far, there hasn’t been any overlap between the major players. We’ve got one irrigation and equipment company (Toro) and one pesticide company (Syngenta). But down the road, depending on what the advisory council thinks, FarmLinks might have the best tools for education for customers. Then we would test several products from various pesticide companies to compare product A, B, C and D beside each other.

Are you going to renovate the course?
If we do anything, it would be to add more grass for technical and educational purposes but nothing to be rerouted or changed. There’s nothing to change, other than from an educational standpoint.

How will FarmLinks expand?
It depends on the advisory council, but the plan is to grow it, to make it bigger and better. Whether that’s more partners or taking the training initiative a step further, those are the things that have been discussed as possibilities. Hopefully, the more interest … the more success the product bears. The fruit of it is more people with innovative products so superintendents can be exposed to these things. The more, the better. If there are enough of those types of products out there, we need to be showing them.

Do you foresee the size of the groups that come here increasing?
No. We’ll always keep it down-home in small groups because it’s hard to build relationships. We put a lot of thought into the number. If you look at everything, the lodge is built around accommodations of 15 people, and the bus is built around accommodations of 15 people. We have brought bigger groups in, but that’s about the size group you can get to know on a personal level. At the same time, if you get too big a group, people start to feel less likely to ask questions or get involved.

Can anybody showcase a product here?
The whole basis of this thing is novel, innovative products and leaders in the industry. For a company that is just starting up, it would be an easy and quick way to get into the market by becoming part of the experience here. But a company has to be a leader in the industry or the product has to be valuable, because we’re not just selling positions or space. It’s more about relationships.

Explain how the cool-season grasses on the course are in such good shape in the South.
We have bentgrass greens, which have become a pretty accepted practice down here for high-end golf courses. And for that matter, some of our public courses have gone to bent as well. The difference that we’re doing is that we have stepped out with grasses – such as thermal blue, which is a new heat-tolerant Kentucky bluegrass – in the rough area that traditionally have been warm-season turf. We established it in a couple places and are evaluating it as a possible rough grass. So far, it looks good. A lot of it is based on credence of prior research done at Auburn.

What’s done here that isn’t done normally at other golf courses?
We were doing a lot of experimental combinations of herbicides that most superintendents wouldn’t do because there’s a good chance they might damage or kill some turf. We do things that would cost many superintendents their jobs, but it’s accepted here.

What do you hope superintendents take away from a visit to FarmLinks?
Hopefully, it’s better information about how to do their jobs, whether it’s fertilizer selection, how fertilizers work, irrigation equipment or mowing equipment. When they leave here, they should be able to go back and have a better understanding of either why they’re doing what they’re doing or how to do it better. It’s really about their education. That’s the whole purpose of what we’re doing. If we’re not doing that, we’re coming up short.

What’s FarmLinks’ future?
David Pursell is committed to this being the hub for turfgrass managers who want to see the future now. His vision is that superintendents can come here and see what the turf industry is going to be like in five or 10 years. Superintendents are going to see things here they won’t be able to see at a turfgrass field day. GCN