Grassform participated in the 8th annual conference held by ETS in Frankfurt, Germany. Under the heading Looking Beyond, this year’s conference revolved around the latest developments and emerging perspectives in turfgrass management. Grassform’s Director, Antonis Gkrimotsis, joined the interactive panel discussion exploring ways of handling large volumes of pitch data and the methodology to convert raw data into actionable insights.
A fascinating field tour followed with visits to Deutsche Bank Park Arena, home stadium of Eintracht FC, then to the German Football Association (DFB) campus including its new headquarters and the state-of-the-art training grounds of the national team. A most interesting discussion was held with the QA leads at Bundesliga about the institutional framework, as well as important issues for the future of sports turf.
Next stop was one of the largest turf farms in Germany and finally, a visit to the leading Saint Leon-Rot golf course where the head greenkeeper offered a tour through the 56-hole course and the research plots, in which he conducts systematic research in collaboration with a German university.
Group discussions among the field experts focused on the critical issue of water, its scarcity, methods of rational management, and the development of turf cultivars with increased resilience to arid environments and degraded water quality.
In the new Board elections that concluded the conference, Antonis Gkrimotsis was elected member of the Directive Board of the European Turfgrass Society.