Elite Rejuvenation Update: Seeing the savings

It was one of the hottest and driest summers that Matthew Stout has ever had to face in his 11-year career as a superintendent. It’s also his first at LuLu Country Club, Glenside, Pa., where Stout says the course saw temperatures hit 90 or more on 44 days this summer.

With the help of BASF’s products LuLu CC has held up to the heat. The membership is telling its superintendent that they have never seen the course look like this at this point of the year.

“They are just comparing it to the last three to five years,” Stout says of the Donald Ross-designed course that a year ago had a fairway that was half dirt and half crabgrass. “The course has some bumps and bruises from the lack of rain, but compared to some of the other courses in the area we are doing well. When you don’t see a lick of fungus or disease you know the products are working.”

This summer Stout has made three applications of BASF’s Xzemplar fungicides on his fairways for 21 days of control. The Elite Rejuvenation spray program that he started in April has one final application of Emerald this month.

Over at Oglebay Resort, Wheeling, W.Va., Superintendent Nick Janovich says that he has ended his summer a “happy camper.” Before the Elite Rejuvenation program he was spraying generic products every 14 days, but this summer Xzemplar has provided him 28 days of control from all three applications on his fairways.

“Everything looks good and we haven’t had any issues or disease break through,” says Janovich. “It’s been nice to actually reevaluate our programs. I was kind of stuck in that rut of ‘this is what we’ve always done,’ or ‘this is the cheapest.’ This program really opened us up to other options.”

Janovich’s Elite Rejuvenation spray program is coming to a close and his allowance of BASF product is as well. With Early Order Program season here he says that he will have to reevaluate his order this year too.

“I’m excited to switch some stuff around, and see if we can get a little better control while getting some more spacing between applications,” adds Janovich. “That’s how I’m going to approach this this coming EOP. Once you start to see how long a product lasts and you start figuring out the cost per acre per seven, 14, 21, 28 days. That’s where I think you see the savings.”