Divot Mix

"When I first witnessed golf in Scotland it looked to me like a silly game for old men." -- Charles Blair Macdonald, golf course architect and first U.S. Amateur Champion

Rain Bird float passes test run

Rain Bird Corp. has officially kicked off its “run for the roses” in Duarte, Calif., with a Tournament of Roses sanctioned test run by the company's 2005 float entry.

The early morning appearance of the flowerless, foam-covered mesh and wire creation was part of Fiesta Parade Floats annual “Parade before the Parade,” and presented many early morning risers with an opportunity to get up-close and personal with some of the largest floats designed by Fiesta Parade Floats for the 2005 Rose Parade.

The final test run is an opportunity to ensure that the floats are road-worthy and won't present any significant mechanical or structural problems on Jan. 1, 2005, according to officials.

Tim Estes, president and CEO of Fiesta Parade Floats said, “Rain Bird's float entries always present an engineering challenge, and Playful Pandamonium is no exception with its eight separate waterfalls circulating over 1,500 gallons of flowing and cascading water, 24 high-pressure misting nozzles to re-create the mist of a bamboo forest, and a complex system of hydraulics used to simulate realistic movements of the giant pandas as they travel down Colorado Boulevard this coming January.”

This year's 2005 float entry will celebrate a family of giant panda bears as they frolic, catch up on their sleep and crunch on fresh bamboo culled from a mist-shrouded forest given life by an adjacent stream. Playful Pandamonium will highlight the company's vision for The Intelligent Use of Water, a worldwide commitment to furthering environmental preservation through water conservation, and a focal point that served as the key message for each of Rain Bird's award-winning float entries.

Later in November, hundreds of Rain Bird employees, including top-level management and their families, will begin the process of applying hundreds of thousands of fresh flowers and other plant material to Playful Pandamonium , a task that will consume 10,000 cumulative hours to complete.

The 116th Tournament of Roses Parade will mark Rain Bird's ninth year as a participant, having won eight previous awards including the Grand Marshal's Trophy in 2004, the Sweepstakes Trophy in 2003, 2002, 2001, 1999 and 1998, the President's Trophy in 2000 and the Director's Trophy in 1997.

Club Car promotes golf participation among employees

Club Car president and CEO Phil Tralies says the golf industry needs to put its money where its mouth is when it comes to increasing participation.

“Those of us who depend on the health of the game to support our business should be willing to invest in programs that grow the game,” Tralies said at the fifth annual Golf 20/20 conference in St. Augustine, Fla., earlier this month. “We should not expect others to do what we're not doing ourselves.”

The place to start, Tralies suggested, is close to home. Club Car recently began sponsoring free golf lessons for employees who want to learn the game. The lessons are offered through the “Link Up 2 Golf” player development program at The First Tee of Augusta. Club Car is paying for a pilot group of employees to participate in the program and hopes to expand the offer to at least 100 employees in 2005.

We hope more of our associates not only learn the game, but learn to love the game and help support our local courses,” said Tralies, a member of the executive committee of Golf 20/20. “Golf is what supports our business collectively and each of us individually. We want to encourage an appreciation of that within the Club Car family.”

In addition, Tralies encouraged others within the golf industry to adopt similar employee programs. “Every company that depends on golf for its success should be involved in promoting the game. If we can get employees at the majority of the companies in our industry coming to the course and bringing their children and their friends, we not only will have a positive effect on participation, but also show our support to our customers.”

Contact http://www.clubcar.com/ .

USDA cataloging natural pesticides' "modes of action"

Agricultural Research Service scientists in Oxford, Miss., are cataloging how genes in fungi and weeds respond to natural pesticides, with the goal of discovering biologically based compounds, or biocides, with new modes of action.

Plant physiologist Stephen O. Duke, molecular biologist Scott Baerson and plant molecular geneticist Zhiqiang Pan, working at the ARS Natural Products Utilization Research Unit , are using gene microarray technology to study how natural fungicides and herbicides affect a genetic process called transcription.

The researchers are currently cataloguing the effects, called modes of action, of natural fungicides and herbicides on genes. This information will be gathered in a gene transcription library for fungicides. A similar library for herbicides will eventually be assembled, according to Duke.

Over time, plants and fungi have developed resistance to many agricultural pesticides, creating a need for the discovery of biologically based compounds, or biocides, with new modes of action.

Organisms treated with pesticides respond by altering the transcription of their genes, and different pesticides cause different transcription patterns. The results are "transcription fingerprints" that can be documented and catalogued.

According to Duke, libraries of these "fingerprints" will make it possible to screen new biocides whose modes of action are unknown, to see if their fingerprints are similar to those of other known modes of action and thus warrant further testing. Also, the approach can help researchers identify previously unknown targets of novel biocides, based on which genes are affected by the compound.

DNA microarray technology helps to identify modes of action because it simultaneously provides transcription data for every gene in an organism.

Any libraries developed will be publicly available once they are considered reliable. But Duke stressed that much work still needs to be done.

ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.