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Keelan Pulliam, head, Syngenta
Professional Products, says Syngenta is committed to the Green
Industry. [All images: Steve Trusty] |
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These plots are under the care
of Dr. Henry Wetzel. |
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Gay Simms showed some fascinating
work with ornamentals. |
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Vero Beach, FL — Along with mad dogs and Englishmen, add editors
to the short list of those souls who wander dusty fields under the noonday
sun.
With temperatures approaching the mid 90s, and grateful for easterly
breezes from the nearby Atlantic, turfgrass pathologist Dr. Henry Wetzel
escorted groups of editors over the two acres of turf plots at Syngenta
Professional Product’s Vero
Beach Research Center here.
This particular stop, one of a half dozen this afternoon, showed the
editors (up close and personal) several common and devastating turf diseases.
Wetzel described and pointed out how Syngenta’s fungicides, including
some unnamed experimental work, keep them at bay.
Syngenta, the
international agribusiness with worldwide sales of $6.6 billion, is the
leading supplier of fungicides in the U.S. turfgrass market through its
Syngenta
Professional Products business. The company is one of the few remaining
basic manufacturers that dominate chemical pest management in the Green
Industry.
The core of the company’s message to the dozen media representatives
(and one officer each from GCSAA, PLCAA and STMA) was devoted to showing
off its Vero Beach Research Center, a 240-acre facility that’s received
more than $5 million in upgrades and improvements since the merger of
Novartis and Zeneca created Syngenta in 2001.
Keelan Pulliam, who heads the company's Professional Products team, stressed
his company’s growing commitment to the T&O, professional pest
control and vegetation management/aquatics markets.
“These are growing markets,” said Pulliam.“They’re
not growing as fast as they were, but they are growing.” He said
the parent company has given Professional Products high priority in the
initial screening process for new chemistry, and made it a separate direct
report to company investors. “We’re structured globally to put
our company in a position to compete,” he added. Professional products
comprise 26% of the company’s total U.S. crop protection sales, he
said.
His comments followed the previous afternoon’s tour of the VBRC
where Syngenta scientists and technicians guided the media through the
17,350-sq.-ft. complex of offices, laboratories and greenhouses.
The editors — some from turf, some from nursery/greenhouse publications
— got a practical, if by necessity quick, overview of the company’s
ongoing research on formulation, in particular, and other improvements
and breakthroughs it’s working on to keep it among Green Industry
market leaders in specialty chemicals.
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