The STRI (Sports Turf Research Institute) opened up its research facilities to over 250 sports and amenity turf-care professionals last week. Delegates from across the globe attended the two-day event at STRI’s head office in Bingley, West Yorkshire, UK, for an exclusive tour of the Institute’s eight hectare trials area, where the safety and efficacy of new products, machinery and management techniques for sports turf are trialed.
The educational event was supported by STRI research partners, each demonstrating and presenting their latest trials, including Bayer Cropscience (Safeguarding turf health), Campey Turf Care Systems (Imants SandCat and Air2G2), Everris (grow-in trial), Farmura – An Aquatrols Company (innovative technologies for turf grass under stress), Rigby Taylor (grass seeding solutions – sports wear trial), Sherriff Amenity (fungicides and supplements) and Syngenta (water conservation for turf quality).
Gordon McKillop, chief executive of STRI (top), said, “This year’s event proved to be an enormous success and we are overwhelmed by the support received from within the sports turf industry. This is a unique opportunity, whereby we are able to present the results of experimental research trials to the end user. It is STRI’s belief that innovation and research are key to meeting the challenges faced by current and rising issues that shape the social, economic and environmental context in which we work. STRI Research offers us an opportunity to open a dialogue at grass roots level to fuel the development of new products, services and solutions.
“We were delighted this year to present the results of our own experimental research trials (BLUE2GREEN Sport System), on innovative construction profiles, which have been running concurrently at both our Bingley research facility and at STRI Redlands facility in Brisbane, Australia, over the last two years.”
October 2, 2015
