TPI FIELD DAY HOST EVERGREEN TURF— GROWING A DREAM
By Suz Trusty
Evergreen Turf was Jeff Nettleton’s dream, a sod farm in the desert near Eloy, Arizona, a 120-acre farm with a single center pivot, with the simple goal of producing high quality sod for landscape contractors. When Jeff called his friend, Jimmy Fox, to help look for an investor, he never dreamed that someday the two of them would be partners, with farms in three states—Arizona, New Mexico and California—and managing over 2,500 acres of sod production.
Today the Eloy site is a 655-acre farm with three center pivots, one lateral irrigation system, and three reservoirs. Partners Jeff Nettleton and current TPI President Jimmy Fox, along with their Evergreen Turf team, are looking forward to welcoming you as the host farm for TPI’s 2018 Field Day on February 14.
Back in 1999, when Evergreen Turf began plowing for their first planting, the Eloy site was their only farm. Tey had initially purchased 320 acres there, choosing the location because of the good quality, affordable land, with available water. A couple years later, they added a second center pivot on that site and increased production. A couple years after that, they bought the farm adjacent to them. Ten, five years after that first plowing, they purchased Al Gardner’s Gardner Turfgrass operation, a 440-acre farm in Stanfield, AZ, about 30 miles from Eloy. Fox says, “Both of the farms are about halfway between two major metropolitan areas—Tucson and Phoenix. Tat puts us approximately 65 miles away from our first stop in either city, but the sites’ advantages more than make up for it.”
Evergreen Turf ’s main offices are in Chandler, Arizona, approximately 45 miles from both farm sites. Chandler is just nine miles from Mesa and just under ten miles from Scottsdale. All major administrative functions, including bookkeeping and coordination of installation, run through the Chandler office.
Te entire operation is built for efficient harvesting and shipping. Te onsite Farm Manager at the Eloy farm is Louis Reyes. All the harvesting is automated, with one Trebro Autostack harvester, and two Trebro Harvest Stacks, and multiple QuadLifts to match up to the high- volume harvesters. Te Production and Trucking Manager is Allen Partain, who is in charge of all the Evergreen Turf Arizona production operations.
Soils at the Eloy site are typical of much of Arizona, the virgin desert’s silty loam, which Fox classifies as a good growing medium for turfgrasses. “Tere’s no native sand
TPI Turf News January/February 2018
Jimmy Fox (left) and Jeff Nettleton (right), partners in Evergreen Turf, look forward to welcoming Field Day attendees.
around us unless it’s in a dry riverbed,” says Fox. “All area sod farms have to import sand if they want to grow on sand. We use it just for our sports field and golf grasses and import about 50-85 acres worth of sand each year.”
Generally, about 20 acres of that sand are at the Eloy site. Te other 65 acres are at Evergreen Turf ’s Stanfield farm. Fox says, “We use straight sand for our sand-based sod, with no soil or peat mixed in.”
Grasses and Markets Nettleton had a great background in turfgrass production when they started the company, and both have learned and grown with the industry. Evergreen Turf ’s first plantings were Bermudagrasses: Tifgreen, Tifway 419 and Midiron, all targeted to landscape contractors.
Te mix has changed since they started and now includes seven grasses: Tifgreen, Tifway 419, Midiron, TifGrand and TifTuf Bermudagrasses; Palmetto St. Augustine; and a small amount of turf-type tall fescue. Latitude 36 will be added to their stable of grasses in 2018.
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