BASF Professional Turf & Ornamentals has launched a new umbrella brand called Intrinsic. The first two products under the Intrinsic umbrella – both coincidentally pyraclostrobins – are Honor fungicide and Insignia SC fungicide.
BASF is rolling out the red carpet for this launch. The company already connected a handful of its experts with the media to discuss what Intrinsic is all about… next it goes on the road to visit BASF sales meetings and then chapter meetings. This effort will also be backed up with a marketing campaign that kicks off this month.
I had the pleasure of speaking with a group of BASF brass: Brian Lish, business manager, Thavy Staal, marketing manager, Kyle Miller, senior technical specialist and Tom Hill, communications manager.
The group stressed to me the importance of these Intrinsic products being the first fungicides labeled for both disease control and plant health in the turf and ornamental market.
“BASF has studied plant health benefits from pyraclostrobin, the active ingredient in both fungicides, for more than 10 years in crop and three years in turf and ornamentals,” Lish said. “Our research shows several tangible benefits to the superintendent that includes superior disease control and greater root system density with the turf, which provides for faster recovery from stresses.”
Miller told me that this program intentionally coincides with early ordering programs for superintendents.
“We always focus on disease control first – applying fungicides is the first good thing a superintendent can do,” Miller said. “It’s roots first, then the top second. If they don’t have good roots, the top isn’t going to make it anyway.”
Miller had an interesting story about discovering extra benefits of Insignia at FarmLinks in Sylacauga, Ala. In 2007, a spray tech was applying Insignia to a fairway when he was suddenly called away before he could finish the job. That turned out to be a happy accident when the fairway was mowed later that week.
“We saw some dramatic results in the fairway. Visually it wasn’t as dramatic as it was in the infrared readings of the turfgrass,” Miller said. “But definitely, the side treated with Insignia was tolerating drought better. We took a look at the roots, and that’s where we saw the difference.”
Like he said, roots first. Tom Hill emailed me the PowerPoint slide showing the infrared readings from the fairway. Hopefully I’m high-tech enough to get it posted on the blog… (it looks like it worked.) The blue area on the right is healthy turf, the red on the left is stress. Both areas were irrigated equally, the right side was the side treated with Insignia.
Before the conversation was over, the group once again touched on the fact that their Intrinsic fungicides have both disease control and plant health on the label, a first in the turf & ornamental market, according to BASF.
“We want superintendents to pick this up for controlling disease,” Staal said, “and remember that it can help them with their stresses as well.”
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