SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/765909
FACILITY & OPERATIONS 32 SportsTurf | January 2017 www.sportsturfonline.com MAKING DECISIONS IN THE POST- PATENT PESTICIDE MARKET agrichemical companies takes a commitment. In the late 90's when I was climbing the steps through the golf industry, most our chemicals came from a few big companies who did the research and development and brought new active ingredients to market. A few names like Dow, DuPont, Bayer, BASF, and the newcomer in 2000, Syngenta, dominated the scene. Those companies continue to innovate and bring new active ingredients to the market, in addition to supplying their trusted brand names. But things have changed. At the writ- ing of this article, Dow and DuPont have a merger pending, Bayer is awaiting regulatory approval to purchase Monsanto, and the Swiss firm Syngenta's acquisition by ChemChina is all but complete. The Japanese chemical giant Sumitomo owns a significant portion of the Australian company Nufarm, who acquired Cleary's only a few years ago. SipcamAdvan's parent company is Oxon Group, headquartered in Milan, Italy. Makhteshim Agan, a huge Israeli chemical company responsible for the Quali—Pro brand, is renamed Adama and wholly owned by ChemChina. While these examples only scratch the surface, they do illustrate that it is a global in- dustry with a global supply chain and partnerships that seem to change rapidly. Given the changing landscape, it is often tricky to determine the provenance of a product. The proliferation of players on the agrichemical field has been driven, in part, by the number of active ingredients that are now post-patent. Azoxystrobin recently came off patent and two other strobilurins, pyraclostrobin and fluoxastrobin, will be available in the next couple years. Along with ai's mancozeb, propiconazole, iprodione, chlorothalonil and many others that have long been available, budget conscious turf managers have post-patent fungicides from nearly every class available to combat turf diseases. As a refresher, Ameri- can patents last for 17 years during which the chemical's price and distribution agreements are controlled by the patent owner. Traditionally, the patent-protected period means higher prices for the consumer as the company recovers their investment for the research, development, and EPA registra- tion of the active ingredient, which can easily exceed 10 years and $10 million. Post-patent, however, active ingredients can be formulated and sold under several or even dozens of dif- ferent brand names at whatever price the formulator chooses. As the post-patent market developed in the last decade, low prices were the driving force of growth. We often referred to products as "generics." More recently, though, companies specializing in post-pat- ent products have used sophisticated marketing to grow brand ■ BY REBECCA AUCHTER W hen I started managing sports turf about 11 years ago, I had the misguided notion that it would be eas- ier than golf course management, where I'd started my career. After all, it's just longer grass, right? Obviously, I was wrong. It didn't take long to realize the special skill set needed to maintain quality playing surfaces under the "herding" traffic patterns and abuse sports fields must endure. Even though I had some catching up to do in my transition from golf to sports turf, I was confident in my agronomic skills, especially in using chemicals and developing a spray program. For those of you not familiar with the Mid-Atlantic climate where I grow grass, it is humid in the summer and we get nearly every turf disease in the compendium. We are far enough north that cool-season grasses are required, but summer temperatures strain the limits of those species. Irrigation is crucial to keep turf actively growing and, more importantly, recovering from constant use in our municipal park system. Certainly, we employ good management practices with regard to nutrition, soil man- agement, species selection, and cultural practices, but a preven- tive fungicide program is generally required for highly managed fields in this region. SO MANY PRODUCT CHOICES Developing a preventive spray program to manage turf disease isn't difficult for me since I started honing those skills years ago on the golf course. But making it happen on a municipal budget instead of a country club budget is an entirely different challenge. In addition, the last decade has seen an explosion of post-patent products entering the turf and ornamental market. While our choice of active ingredients has remained stable with only a few new chemicals to consider annually, the quantity of formula- tions, brand names, and combination products have skyrocketed. As a busy grounds manager with a wide array of responsibili- ties spread over hundreds of acres, I don't have the luxury of spending hours in my office researching every new product to determine if it may be a good fit for our program. At the same time, I am highly motivated to find the ideal products at the best price so my staff and I can evolve to meet the expectations of our customers. This article grew out my desire to develop some kind of systematic approach to selecting products for our program. WHAT'S DRIVING THE CHANGES I would like to note that I certainly haven't been living under a rock, but keeping up with the mergers and acquisitions of