More than 100 greenkeepers and course managers travelled from across the UK and Ireland, to attend the first STRI Research event on Wednesday, 21 September 2011 at STRI’s research facilities in Bingley,West Yorkshire.
The event has already received many positive comments and been hailed as a great success from the delegates. The day was set up in a ‘station rotation’ format and demonstrated the latest products, machinery and techniques that are being tested and developed for the effective management of sports turf.
The format worked extremely well and looks set to be followed in future years – with many advance bookings already being taken for 2012 from those who attended. Each year will showcase the latest developments and different focuses for turf management. This year’s event focused on seven separate research aspects and included disease and nutritional management research, demos from the latest machinery and innovative techniques to help improve the quality and performance of turf.
Bayer, Becker Underwood, Everris (formerly Scotts), R&K Kensett, Ransomes Jacobsen, Sherriff Amenity and Syngenta were the companies supporting and presenting at the event, each of which is having research conducted at Bingley and investing time and resource into the development of new products for the industry with the support of STRI’s research team.
Ruth Mann, who manages many research trials for STRI, commented: “What a great day! The weather worked well for us and the new rotation format was very successful, allowing lots of questions and interaction from the delegates. We’ve had some amazing feedback, with lots of people already asking what we’ve got planned for next year! We’re going to ask the delegates who attended to help us plan for next year’s event, which we hope will become an annual fixture in the industry’s calendar.”
Gordon McKillop, CEO at STRI, commented: “The response for STRI Research has been remarkable. We were already oversubscribed for the event within two weeks of the invitations being sent out. This shows the desire for knowledge within the industry and we believe that the STRI Research event offers a great platform for turf managers to see, firsthand, the innovations that are being made in sports turf research and management.”
STRI is one of the world’s leading authorities on sports turf, providing advice and expertise on the research, design, construction and management of both natural and artificial sports surfaces.
STRI (previously Sports Turf Research Institute) was established in 1929, in association with the UK Golf Unions and The R&A (Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews), to provide research and advisory services for golf clubs on their golf greens and courses.
By the 1950s, STRI had established their reputation as the leading company for providing advice and research on new products and techniques for managing sports turf, not just for golf, but for all types of sports surfaces and amenity grass areas.
The last two decades have seen rapid growth within STRI, currently with 75 staff, delivering a range of consultancy and research services across an international client base of around 2,100 sports clubs and facilities each year.
STRI www.stri.co.uk