SOD PRODUCTION SERVICES Provided by Chad Adcock, Vice President of Business
As an offshoot of Covid, golf seems to have made a vast comeback. From a 20-year veteran of the golf business, I thought golf was nearly dead, but Covid brought people back to the game. And now we are seeing big money being spent on golf for the first time in decades. To give you an example, Sod Production Services’ home farm is Riverside Turf, a sod producer in Charles City, VA. Five years ago, golf was three percent of our overall business in the Mid- Atlantic. Now it’s as much as 15 to 20 percent of Riverside Turf ’s business. Tat is truly a significant change.
Beyond the uptick in golf created by Covid, we continue to see the increase in golf courses and other grassing projects in traditionally cool-seasons regions switching out grasses from cool-season to warm-season grasses like Tahoma 31 that have improved cold tolerance. We are seeing this because of the effects of climate change and because of the environmental benefits associated with warm-season grasses such as lower water use, drought tolerance, and better resistance to disease.
Sod Production Services’ Tahoma 31 Bermudagrass thrives on the slope in this photos taken by Central Sod of Maryland..
Market Trends: Trends that I’m seeing in the marketplace are, first and foremost, golf is really on a rebound economically. Tere are many, many projects that are opening in the golf sector for renovations, and, for the first time in a long time, there is some new U.S. course construction. Tere are lots of renovations happening, overall improvement projects that may not be complete renovations but may be bunker improvements and similar projects, which require re-grassing on a small to very large scale. I think that’s being driven by a good economy for golf and the need for reducing water usage and pesticide usage on golf courses.
Golf course superintendents, architects, and others who specify grasses really like these newer turfgrasses that are very fine-bladed, very dense, and hold up well to environmental stress such as drought, cold, and disease.
Te majority of our licensed growers have had Tahoma 31 for several years now and they have been providing samples to golf courses whose projects are coming to fruition. Tese golf courses have had ample time to trial the grass and are really falling in love with it. Tey’ve trialed it for environmental impacts versus other varieties and the beneficial environmental features are becoming a selling point to their board members and general managers because of the way the grass performs under all of these stresses. Tey know it can save them tremendous amounts of money on fungicide, water, and labor.
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Anticipated Production: About 90 percent of our licensed farms that are growing Tahoma 31 are in the production phase now, meaning they are producing, harvesting, and selling, versus previous years when many of our licensees were gearing up for production. Tahoma 31 is now growing and selling worldwide, in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Tahoma 31 has licensed farms on four continents.
Anticipated Pricing: Almost all turfgrass crops have increased in price by about 20 percent and most of that is economy-based because of cost increases on fuel, pallets, fertilizers, chemical inputs, and labor. We are seeing 20 percent to 25 percent increases in sales prices across the board. Everything associated with the sod business has gone up 20 to 25 percent. Pallet pricing has gone through the roof, and those price increases are being passed on to the customer. In some parts of the country, pallet prices have more than doubled. Fuel surcharges on every load are common, and the price of chemicals and fertilizers, which are a direct reflection of the war in Ukraine on the global economy, has really had an impact on turfgrass pricing. Te increase in the cost of production is rolled into the customers’ cost. I have not seen a slowdown, but I would expect a slowdown of sales because of the price increase. Sod is 25 percent higher and shipping to get the sod there is 25 percent higher, and everything rolls downhill.
TPI Turf News July/August 2022
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