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: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/765909
www.stma.org January 2017 | SportsTurf 33 GreenJacket PERMEABLE Grow-in Covers dramatically increase the sun's ability to germinate and GROW healthier turf while allowing the underlying turf and soil to breathe. And our patented IMPERMEABLE Reinforced Cover protects your turf from cold-weather damage. UNIVERSITY STUDIES PROVE COME SAY HELLO AND PICK UP THE STUDIES AT BOOTH 134 AT THE STMA SHOW IN ORLANDO CAN MAKE A REMARKABLE DIFFERENCE . B E F O R E A F T E R Non-retouched client photos READ THE STUDIES in the GJ Research Tab at www.GreenJacket.com 888-786-2683 Greenjacket.-HP-SportsTurf_Jan.qxp 12/14/16 4:15 PM Page 1 recognition and differentiate their portfolio from others by add- ing original formulations that are proprietary. Pairing good cus- tomer support and quality control along with the registration of new post-patent formulations has created a niche of cost effective and reliable products that have shed the uncertainty consumers perceived under the "generic" moniker. I zeroed in on the post- patent brands that offer a relatively full portfolio of products and are widely available throughout most of the country. ArmorTech, UPI's Phoenix, PrimeraOne, Quali-Pro, Select Source, Nufarm and Cleary's, FMC, Prokoz, and SipcamAdvan are the brands with prominence in the turf and ornamental segment at this time. I expect this to be a changing and growing list as mergers and acquisitions spur the marketing efforts of parent companies and more active ingredients reach a post-patent status. A METHOD FOR COMPARISON Looping back, my motivation for digging into this topic was a way to compare the multitude of products with the same active ingredient. The most valuable tool, by far, is the EPA's Pesticide Product Label System (PPLS.) The full link is at the end of this article. PPLS is a user-friendly database where you can enter the name, company, registration number, or active ingredient and get a list of every registered product that matches the query. In a matter of a few minutes and a handful of searches, I was able to find objective information unavailable from any other source. For example, Bayer's Signature is the original patent- protected formulation offered in the turf and ornamental market with the active ingredient aluminum tris. It is a true systemic fungicide that presents no resistance issues and is now avail- able in post-patent formulations that are lower in price. One of my trusted vendors offers that active ingredient under United Turf Alliance's ArmorTech brand and the product is called Alt 70 WDG. Another vendor carries UPI's Phoenix brand and the product is called Viceroy 70DF. When I look up those fungicides by their EPA registration numbers, they are the same product, formulated by Tessenderlo Kerley. Selection, then, is simply a matter of comparing price because I can determine with certainty that the two products are identical. As another example, "Echo 720" is the chlorothalonil formulation offered by SipcamAdvan. If I search the EPA registration number in the PPLS database, I can find that PrimeraOne Chlorothalonil 720 is the exact same thing. NuFarm's thiophanate-methyl and iprodione combina- tion has three alternate names listed under the EPA registration number 228-630 that can be considered as equals. It is part of my due diligence when I am considering any pesticide to do a quick search of the EPA registration number through the PPLS