Lavy’s News

With winter leaving and spring arriving, we at Lavy Enterprises are anticipating your paver and natural stone orders. Like most companies, we took this winter to change some things around. We have redesigned our office for better flow when placing or picking up your orders. We have expanded our straight truck fleet to better serve our customers. We have a new receptionist, Charlotte Wollum, to help you when you walk in the door. Also, long-time truck driver Abraham Kramer, the big guy, is now our paver sales person. Rod Deaton left Lavy Enterprises March 21, 2008 to pursue a life as a foreman with Site Group. We are all sorry to see him leave, but hope that he is happy with his new career. If you have any questions, please let us know. I hope to be seeing you in the near future.

As we get closer to spring the bad news in our industry is that the items we need to serve our Customers continue to cost more. It is hard to for us to create a price sheet because the markets for fertilizer and seed change on a weekly basis. There are several reasons for the higher costs.

• Demand for fertilizer worldwide exceeds the supply. Asian countries are using more and more potash and phosphorus.
• Nitrogen production in the US has declined and we have to go shopping on the foreign market for urea.
• To add to the supply crunch the US dollar is very weak, thus we get less for every dollar we spend. This also applies to our fuel purchases as well.

The seed market is going to get extremely tight in the next year with seed growers deciding right now if they are going to grow grass seed or wheat. The grain market will continue to affect the price of grass seed for at least the next two to three years. With wheat at all time highs and the decision on fescue production for the 09 crop being made in the next month, we will have an idea of just how high fescue seed will go into the fall of 2009.

My advice is to stay in touch with your supplier of these inputs and be ready to adjust your prices accordingly. I also advise you to discuss just what you need to use on turf to meet the needs. Many Customers have used items that are either not necessary or are over applying some nutrients just because they have been cheap. Take a good look at your programs and choose what is most important to your Customer.

If you weren’t here for Customer Appreciation Day, you missed a great day. We had great food, great speakers, great hands-on displays, and much more. We’d like to thank Alan Mark for the presentation he gave concerning the latest at Jacklin Seed as well as being on hand to answer everyone’s questions.

Eric Bihl from Unilock was here to show us how to install the fireplace kits. We also had a beautiful display of the new MODS (Modular Outdoor Design Solutions) from Unilock. We saw the quality and beauty of the MODS as well as seeing first hand how easy the installation is for you and how your customers will appreciate getting it done so quickly.

We also had reps and displays from Marshalltown tools and Evans Stoneworks on hand for questions.

Our delicious food was catered by Top Notch Catering. The hamburgers, smoked sausages and all the trimmings were mighty good. We also had scrumptious homemade apple pies made by Lisa Lavy, Shená Talbert, and Jennifer Snyder.

Just sharing great food with our friends (customers) as well as sharing ideas was time well spent. Thank you for the service you allow us to provide you. You gave us a great year in 2007 and we look forward to an even better 2008.

In November of 2007 we supplied the sod to redo the outfield grass at Bob Wren Stadium. as well as contributing funding to the athletic department. We received a letter of thanks from Joe Carbone, Head Coach which you can read here. Lavy Enterprises is committed to providing the finest turfgrass in the Midwest for golf courses and sports fields such as this.

Lavy Enterprises Turf Grass, Inc is excited to announce our new shop service division. With the addition of Greg Snyder (formerly service manager at New Carlisle tractor) to our staff, we are well-positioned to take care of your tractor, truck, and equipment service needs.

We are now offering a Grasshopper inspection program. This is a complete inspection to ensure your Grasshopper is ready for the season. Our Service Department will inspect and service your Grasshopper for $195.00 and advise you on any problem areas that need to be repaired before next season. Read more about this service here.

Also, we are offering a winter service for backhoes and skid loaders. Read more about our 88-point inspection here.

After a somewhat brutal summer for turf grass in Ohio we have made some very interesting observations. Here at Lavy Enterprises Turf Grass Inc. we have both irrigated production fields and non-irrigated fields. We watched our bluegrass and turf type tall fescue fields very closely all summer. The most interesting were the non-irrigated fields.

As the summer progressed with limited rainfall and highs in the 90’s most of the summer the fields performed differently than expected. It is believed by most that tall fescue is more drought and heat tolerant than most other varieties of grass. After this summer I have had a change of heart in this aspect of thinking. Our bluegrass production fields preformed much better throughout the summer than our turf type tall fescue fields. The bluegrass fields handled the weather conditions much better than the fescue fields. We also experienced increased insect pressure as well. Cinch bug and billbug were present along with a moderate grub population. As expected the bluegrass fields bounced back quicker after a shower or any moderate rainfall. Once the tall fescue went dormant it was very slow to recover. Keep in mind that we are growing the newest varieties of both blue and fescue that Jacklin Seed has to offer.

Dr Brede, the plant breeder from Jacklin Seed, has stated to me on numerous occasions that he feels that the newer bluegrass varieties will perform much better than fescue in extended drought conditions. What we experienced this summer has led me to change recommendations to landscapers as to the grass of choice. I am now highly recommending bluegrass seed blends with the newer generation of bluegrass varieties for any home lawn type applications. With a proper fertilization program a home owner should expect an excellent lawn that performs well and looks good in varying weather conditions.

This summer we have been impressed with our latest bluegrass blend that was seeded in the fall of 2005. It is a mix of top Jacklin varieties that we evaluated in our research plots on our farm. Ivan and I picked out two of these varieties before they had names and added them to our production seed.

Each year Dr. Brede, from Jacklin Seed, plants about a 1000 test plots on Lavy’s farm to evaluate new bluegrass varieties. Currently, there are over 3500 variety plots on the home farm here at Lavy Enterprises. It was from these plots that we saw the Everest and Everglade varieties that we included in our production seed along with NuDestiny and Award. These varieties did not have NTEP data at that time but what we saw here on our farm convinced us that these were going to be great varieties for the Midwest region.

This summer as the fields matured and were ready for harvest our test plot results were correct. These varieties made for a superior sod product. We also received the first preliminary NTEP results for these two varieties in late spring and they scored in the top 10. Density and color of the turf was outstanding. The root strength was even more impressive. Here in central Ohio we had a brutal summer with limited rainfall and temperatures in the 90’s for most of the season. The heat tolerance was even more impressive. This dryland production field was harvested throughout the summer with no problems. Our customers report excellent results from using this sod. We are anxiously awaiting word from our customers in Ohio and Pennsylvania next spring and summer for reports on performance of this sod. At this time we feel that the blend of NuDestiny, Award, Everest, and Everglade is going to be the ultimate bluegrass blend for sports fields and golf courses.

Stone Veneer introduction

We’ll start out with information of primary interest to our golf course customers. In between rain and snow storms we have been harvesting some sod. Bluegrass sod is in great shape. The second application of nitrogen is on and we are harvesting some very strong sod. The bluegrass varieties include NuDestiny, Award, Rugby II, and Total Eclipse. Towards mid-summer we will hit some fields with Everest and Everglade in place of Rugby II and Total Eclipse.

Fine fescue was seeded last fall and is off to a great start. We will have about 12,000 yards available for this summer. After looking at the field this week, we feel it should be ready to harvest very soon. Turf type tall fescue supply is good as well.

The seed department has expanded inventory to include all of the Jacklin performs. Anytime you need info on seed you can check out the Lavy or Jacklin web pages.

Sand Based Bentgrass

Our sand-based bentgrass planted last fall is looking great considering the winter we have experienced here. We feel that by mid-summber we should have some good sod ready to harvest. As a reminder to those of you who might be looking for some bent sod, the bent sod is grown on sand from Fairmount Minerals and is to PGA specs. Currently we are growing L93 from Jacklin. This fall we intend to start a section of Alpha. Call and check with Stuart on availability of bent sod on sand. The soil-based bent, a blend of L93 and Southshore, is ready for harvest and we have a good supply.

Jacklin Bluegrasses Dominate Top Spots in New NTEP Trial

New data posted to the internet in March by the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP), showed Jacklin Seed bluegrasses in a commanding lead in the first full year of the new trial results. The latest trial was planted in August 2005 and contains 110 mostly new varieties evaluated at 18 university locations from coast to coast. This data marks the first results from the new test. Of the 15 top-performing entries in the trial, 13 were bred by Jacklin Seed. These 13 included 8 new experimental varieties Jacklin Seed developed specifically for this test. “The results show we’re headed in the right direction,” says Doug Brede, Jacklin Seed’s Research Director. “Eight of the 10 new experimentals we entered scored in the top 15.” Brede does the bluegrass and bentgrass breeding himself. His research team works on 9 other grass species. “This is the third consecutive NTEP that Jacklin varieties have dominated turf quality” he says. Jacklin varieties monopolized the top of the trial in the 1995-1999 and 2000-2005 studies as well. In addition to experimentals, Jacklin Seed entered several variety “standards” into the trial. Of these, NuGlade ranked the highest in the new results. Results released to date are labeled as “preliminary,” since one or two additional sites are expected to submit scores in the coming weeks. Full data should appear on the NTEP website by May.

Currently here at Lavy’s we have 3510 test plots from Jacklin. We are very serious about testing the best of the new seed varieties so that we can evaluate and provide our customers the best sod product possible. In May, Dr. Brede will be back again to put in a bentgrass test plot with around 1000 replicated plots.

A lot of people are concerned about the housing market in 2007. Blame has been placed on rising interest rates, high gas prices, and more recently the subprime lending fallout. So what is actually going to happen this year? The “official” view is that the economy will grow at nearly the same rate as last year, with different regions performing differently. The northeastern midwest is supposed to be one of the worst areas–uncomfortably close to home.

So how do you get sales in slow years? The first thing I would suggest is to actually return calls to potential customers. Rod Deaton and I recently attended a dealers’ meeting at Unilock, where we heard a very interesting presentation from a lady from Unilock’s marketing firm. She related that she wanted to have a front patio built and called five contractors. Only two returned her call. The first asked right away what her budget was; when she had no answer, he ended the call with “Call me when you know”. The second contractor asked what she wanted and gave a quote. It turns out she was willing to consider spending $50,000 on the project. Don’t let these people get away by not returning their calls!

In my position of internal sales and logistics, I hope to spend the year increasing our reliability and speed of customer service. We have just completed a re-organization of our paver yard, and we are currently implementing an order processing and inventory control software. Please let me know if you have any problems, suggestions, or comments about our products, your orders, or our customer service.