Over the past two days, I've spent most of my time traversing the trade show floor and meeting with the titans of the golf course industry about what new and exciting products they're launching here in Orlando and bringing to market in the near future. You can read way more about them in the March issue of GCM, but here's just a taste of what I've heard about.
- Rain Bird launched its new Eagle series of rotors that the company claims (and they appear to have the tests to back it up) are 23 percent more efficient than the competition. The company also has a new MI series mobile controllers which will allow superintendents almost full control of an irrigation system from any web-enabled cell phone or mobile device.
- The folks at BASF (we're on our way to a reception in their honor at the Hard Rock Cafe in just a few minutes) launched Segment, a new post-emergent herbicide that offers selective control of centipedegrass, annual bluegrass and established fine and tall fescues. In addition, they're showing off some innovative new packaging for their products, a flexible packaging that will be first available containing the granular herbicide Drive 75 that they boast can reduce waste by 60 percent compared to traditional hard-plastic bottles.
- At John Deere, its the launch of two new mower lines -- the TerrainCut, which feature the 8800 rough mower and the 7400 trim and surrounds mower, and the PrecisionCut, which features four different types of fairway mowers -- that are attracting plenty of attention.
- Watertronics, which is a manufacturer of pump systems, has been acquired by the Lindsay Corp., a provider of irrigation systems and products. The management team at Watertronics will remain largely intact.
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