Great Lakes Turf aims to expand service to include new markets, product lines, and geographic areas.

Aspen Investments, a holding company that supports the erosion control, site work materials, golf, lawn care, landscape, nursery and greenhouse markets, has acquired professional turfgrass solutions distributor Great Lakes Turf.

This acquisition will provide additional support for Great Lakes Turf in its key markets of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and the Greater Chicago region. It will also help realize their vision of growing the business beyond professional golf applications into the sports turf, nursery, greenhouse and lawn and landscape markets. 

“We’re looking forward to bringing the Great Lakes team on board to take them to the next level,” said Keith Montgomery, chief business development officer for Aspen Investments. “We will be helping them expand to other product lines, customer segments and geographical areas.” 

Previous co-owners Jim Johnson and Mike Plague will remain on the team, with Johnson focusing on the Western Michigan and Illinois regions, and Plague taking on the role of specialty product manager.

As a part of the agreement, Great Lakes Turf will be moving production and distribution into a new warehouse three times larger than their previous facility. This will help them manage more customers and fulfill orders more efficiently. 

“We’re also thrilled to be reunited with Jud Hudnut as general manager,” Montgomery said. “We will lean on his expertise and aggressiveness in the industry to make this a successful endeavor for all of us, especially Great Lakes Turf customers.”

The new model fits a niche for smaller commercial, agricultural and residential irrigation systems.

Munro, a manufacturer of pumps, pump controls, and pump stations for the turf irrigation market, is launching its Simplicity 3hp pump station.

The Munro Simplicity series pump stations are a low-maintenance and professional-grade design. The new 3hp model fits a niche for smaller commercial, agricultural and residential irrigation systems that can benefit from the control and energy efficiency offered by a VFD.

These self-contained UL-QCZJ pumping stations are simple to specify with high-quality specs and drawings available, simple to install with free phone-in commissioning support, and simple to maintain with maintenance support training and tools.

“The pump is a critical component for many irrigation systems and we are seeing more and more demand for these lower-horsepower-packaged pump stations with integrated VFDs” Munro national sales director Guy Collins said. “We’re excited to be able to add this product to our lineup of professional-grade pump stations.”

Addition of GreenActivator expands the Iowa-based company’s product line.

Standard Golf is entering a new product realm.

The Iowa-based manufacturer of golf course accessories announced Sept. 1 that it has introduced GreenActivator, a liquid fertilizer containing humic and fulvic acids with low doses of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, to the golf market.  

Golf led the way during the summer of COVID-19 and Standard Golf’s agility was instrumental in helping courses remain open. The Cup-Saver Ball Retriever, Flexi-Putt, Ball Elevator, In-Ground Trash Can and Safety Cup were among the products Standard Golf introduced in 2020.

Being based in Iowa, Standard Golf is familiar with farming and agricultural products. In 1910, when Standard Golf began, many of its products were ag-centric such as steel farm gates, cistern covers, wagon tongues and the automatic hog waterer. Those products led to the creation of the Classic Ball Washer.

With this same mantra in mind, Standard Golf partnered with Ag Logic, another Iowa-based manufacturer, to offer GreenActivator to the golf course industry. GreenActivator treats soil and turf to create better playing conditions. As a cost-effective soil conditioner, GreenActivator builds turf with increased drought resistance, enhanced roots, quicker turf repair, increased blade width and resiliency with quick absorption.

Located in Conrad, Iowa, Ag Logic has been distributing and manufacturing their patented humic and fulvic acid to the agriculture and sports turf industries for more than 13 years. Since 2009, the company has been conducting its own research and collaborating with third-party researchers to determine the effectiveness of humic and fulvic acids on various types of crops and turf.

Paul Krejcarek, Scott Coyne each bring more than 25 years of experience to the metallurgical science firm after 25 years.

Fisher Barton, a metallurgical science innovation company that specializes in high wear and cutting components, recently named Paul J. Krejcarek as its new chief financial officer and Scott Coyne as its new vice president of sales.

Krejcarek will have primary responsibility for the planning, implementation, managing and running of all finance activities for Fisher Barton, and will also lead the corporate IT team. Coyne will lead the Fisher Barton sales organization, cultivating an engaged, motivated, high-performing team in support of the company's strategy and vision.

Krejcarek has more than 25 years of strategic leadership in manufacturing, business, and finance functions. He comes to Fisher Barton after working as the CFO of Kapco Metal Stamping and, before that, the CFO of the Perlick Corporation, an OEM company that produces bar and beverage equipment for the bar and restaurant industry. He earned his MBA through the EMBA program at UW-Milwaukee and a bachelor’s in accounting from Marquette University. He is also a certified public accountant.

Coyne has more than 25 years of sales and operations leadership experience in a variety of industries. He was most recently a senior director of sales at Metalex, where he managed the sales, marketing and customer service organizations for the company’s OEM and industrial markets. He has also been North American sales director for the Velcro Companies, director of sales for the Americas region at Brady Corporation, and sales and marketing at American Standard Companies. He earned his bachelor’s in education from Northern Illinois University.

According to the International Fertilizer Association, the use of controlled-release fertilizers could reduce by the recommended rate of a conventional fertilizer by 20 to 30 percent while achieving the same yield.

Sollio Agriculture and Pursell are forming a joint venture to build and operate a fertilizer coating plant in St. Thomas, Ontario dedicated to the production of advanced controlled-release fertilizers (CRFs). The project represents an investment more than $20 million Canadian.

Sollio Agriculture is the agribusiness division of 100-year-old Sollio Cooperative Group and is embarking on the project with partners from its retail networks. Pursell is a coating technology innovator based in Sylacauga, Alabama.

The new plant will break ground in fall 2021 and is expected to be operational in August 2022. It will produce CRFs leveraging Pursell’s coating materials and proprietary processing techniques, as well its patented technology that enables the addition of micronutrients and temperature-sensitive additives, such as biologicals, growth enhancers and soil health promoters. These controlled-release coatings improve the uptake of nutrients by plants, with the potential to improve yield and quality while lowering greenhouse gas emissions from volatilization and reducing the risk of nutrient leaching and runoff.

“Local manufacturing reduces logistics expense to customers, provides ability to offer previously unavailable CRF products to this market and supports nutrient stewardship initiatives associated with the use of fertilizer products,” Sollio Agriculture CEO Casper Kaastra said. “We are delighted to be joining forces with Pursell to make the numerous economic and environmental benefits of its CRF technology available to Canadian farmers.”

Pursell, which opened its flagship fertilizer coating plant in Sylacauga in early 2018 has also initiated plans to open an additional plant in Savannah, Georgia.

“Partnering with members of Sollio Cooperative Group to build a plant in St. Thomas is ideal,” Pursell CEO Nick Adamchak said. “It’s located in close proximity to substrate and material suppliers and creates opportunities for retailers in the region to address the diverse nutrition needs of their customers in a predictable, prescriptive and profitable way. This first license of the Pursell Technology outside of the U.S. also enables us to move forward in further international licensing opportunities with our partners at Stamicarbon.”

Historically, CRF products have been difficult to access for commodity agricultural crops such as corn, wheat, canola, or potatoes, and have been used primarily in turf and ornamental and specialty agriculture in the region. Pursell’s coating innovation and technology, coupled with local manufacturing of products, make widespread adoption of CRF into the commodity agriculture market economically and environmentally feasible. “The establishment of our St. Thomas plant gives growers in eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. access to controlled-release nitrogen, phosphate and potash fertilizers, as well as customized plant nutrition options,” Adamchak said.

The St. Thomas plant will produce upwards of 100,000 tonnes at full capacity. According to the International Fertilizer Association, the use of CRFs could reduce by the recommended rate of a conventional fertilizer by 20 to 30 percent while achieving the same yield. CRFs provide a more predictable, precise release curve, so growers can time when plants receive nutrients. Growers using CRFs can also enjoy cost savings from being able to reduce fertilizer applications, add more micronutrients and improve overall plant and soil health.