Cale Bigelow and Jada Powlen attended and participated in the 2024 Sports Field Managers Association (SFMA) annual meeting in Daytona, FL. They co-presented a seminar “What’s new in research for winter overseeding of warm-season grasses”. Cale also presented: “Pure Live Seed: Does it matter?” and co-presented “Soils 201: Next level soils knowledge for the sports field manager” with Dr. Barry Stewart from Mississippi State Univ.
HLA graduate student Stephen Campbell (co-advised by Cale Bigelow and Allen Talbert in ASEC) received a SFMA “SAFE Foundation” graduate student scholarship. For his MS degree project Stephen has been working on developing and implementing a turfgrass curriculum for high school Agrirculture teachers in Indiana.
One team of four undergraduates also attended the SFMA annual meeting and competed in the Collegiate Quiz Bowl challenge. The competition consisted of 28 teams and 109 students from two-year and four-year turf science programs from across the United States. The team of Brody Piel, Hayden Flick, Eli Ziliak and Jacob Winger placed 2nd in the 4-year event (see attached image). The SFMA Collegiate Quiz bowl examines the team’s knowledge on practical topics like turf/weed/insect identification, mathematical calculations related to sports field industry as well as topics like irrigation, and a practical case study related to athletic field management.