Orlando: My week-in-review

We’ll get to this at the end of the post…

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First, thanks everyone for the nice comments on my upcoming promotion and tenure. Thanks, also, to my turf colleagues including the guys on the blog. It's been great working with all of you, and I look forward to many turf-y years to come!

Like my blog colleagues, I spent this week in Orlando, FL, at the Golf Industry Show (GIS)/ Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) national educational conference.

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What is this conference all about?

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There were educational conferences all day Monday and Tuesday. The trade show was Wednesday and Thursday. There is another round of educational seminars today. For example, my KSU colleague Jack Fry is teaching his class (Advanced Stress Management Strategies for Cool-Season Turfgrasses) with Bingru Huang from Rutgers, today.

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*Monday: Seminar on warm-season turf diseases*

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On Monday, I co-taught a day-long seminar about diseases of C4 turf. I was going to describe it, but Frank already summarized it yesterday (yay, less typing for me) and you can check that out.

As Frank notes, the seminar went well. Even with two c0-instructors, though, I was pretty tired by the end. It is hard to teach for 8 hours! Our participants were great--very interactive with some insightful comments and questions.

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*Tuesday: the Microscope Class*

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On Tuesday I helped out with the day-long class, Microscopic Identification of Turfgrass Pathogens. The leaders on this are Henry Wetzel and Alan Windham. They organize and lead the class each year. Phil Harmon from U of Florida provided most of the cultures and specimens. Then, each year, other plant pathologists (like me) help out with all the hands-on work, assisting the participants as they examine turf pathogens in culture and in plant tissue. We are the TA’s, essentially.

By afternoon, some of the participants were so into it, they skipped the afternoon coffee break to keep hunting for Pythium spores!

I always enjoy helping with the class. All the one-to-one hands-on work gives the instructors a chance to get to know the participants and to talk about our favorite thing: Turf diseases!

Thanks to Syngenta for providing funding for microscope rental , and Bobby Martin, Martin Microscopes, for setting up and helping with the scopes.

*Wednesday: Manatees, and Trade Show, and KSU friends-and-alumni*

I had a little spare time on Wednesday morning so went to see some manatees at Blue Springs State Park with Frank. Then, in the afternoon, I walked around the trade show and met with some of my industry colleagues to discuss potential collaborations. I also ran into some of the KSU students as they toured the Toro booth. Unfortunately it did not occur to me to take any photos of that, but they were all there, looking professional and asking questions, representing KSU nicely. I swung past the KSU student booth, too, but did not think to take a photo. It looked good, though!

Here's one image from the trade show: my super-duper colleagues Larry Stowell and Wendy Gelerntner from PACE talking about the top 10 tools for turf at Answers-on-the-Hour.

Manatees: The photos do not do them justice: Some of them are ~10 feet long and 1000-1200 pounds. All they do is float around and eat plants, coming up to breathe every 15 minutes or so. They are an endangered species, and this natural spring area is a reserve for them.

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Drs. Kennelly and Wong take a break from the conference to see the 'tees

At the KSU alumni social and the Heart of America social I had a chance to catch up with some of the regional guys.

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.*Sunday night – SUPERBOWL*

Well, continuing with my week at the GIS, I will rewind back to Sunday to mention the Superbowl. I arrived in Orlando on Sunday, and that night I watched the PACKER VICTORY at the hotel. KSU alum Jordy Nelson did a great job.

You can see my Packer video (recorded by John) and Lane's response if you scroll back a few posts :)

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