BASF | What’s Growing On?

California has always been one of my favorite states to visit. If you are a professional horticulturist, this is the state for you. California growers have more variety, more acres in production, and more unique crops than any place in the world. I have had the pleasure to work in California horticulture, mainly with greenhouse and nursery crops, for the past 25 years. Last month, we embarked on a state-wide road show to announce the introduction of our newest products, Tower® herbicide, Pageant™ fungicide and FreeHand™ 1.75G herbicide. FreeHand 1.75G is now registered for use in California, Pageant is in the final two weeks of the posting process and we are hoping Tower will be registered later this year. All good news for California ornamental professionals (nursery, greenhouse and landscape), who will have access to the best new products in their respective pest management categories.

Our journey through the state started in Carlsbad, near San Diego, continued up the coast through Los Angeles to Oxnard, then on to Watsonville and ended up in Sacramento. Along the way we met with local growers and landscapers, shared our story, ate lunch, handed out free samples of FreeHand (pun intended), loaded up and headed on to the next venue. Our team was capably spearheaded by Fred Eckert and Michael Kropp, our two California sales representatives. We were joined by their boss, Regional Manager, Steve Jackson, and our Marketing Manager, Thavy Un. Also joining us were featured speakers Ann Chase and Mike Zemke of Chase Horticultural Research, Todd Burkdoll, Market Development Specialist for BASF and yours truly. We traveled together in a large rented RV, which proved to be both fun and challenging. Most of the challenges had to do with parking and gas stops – I have a new appreciation for truckers.

Our four meetings were well attended by growers and area distributor sales reps. Discussions were lively, the food was tasty and I think the attendees felt our educational seminars were a good investment of their time. The real attractions were our new products. Pageant fungicide is the broadest spectrum foliar fungicide available for use by growers. Once the final approval is granted by California (approximately mid-April), growers will be able to find out for themselves what a valuable crop management tool this amazing fungicide can be. FreeHand 1.75G will offer nursery and landscape professionals a new, effective tool to help them manage their labor costs. FreeHand users from the rest of the U.S. are telling us this is a terrific new ornamental herbicide. Tower herbicide is providing a spectrum of control of weeds unlike any liquid herbicide currently on the market. BASF recently approved an adjustment to the price of Tower that makes it even more attractive as a preemergence herbicide.

So a week traveling through the great state of California is now in the rearview mirror. We appreciate the great turnouts at each stop – and thanks to our distributors for spreading the word about our seminars. Dr. Ann Chase did her usual entertaining presentations on disease management. During our long rides between meeting locations, I also learned that she is quite the card shark – you’ve been warned. And now the real work begins as we continue to reinforce our message about the portfolio of pest management products from BASF.

Hope to see you soon as we grow along together.