LSA Ups Industry Involvement

Lawn Solutions Australia (LSA) has become a leading authority on many aspects of the turf industry internationally, with increasing influence both here and abroad.

Industry involvement has been steadily increasing by LSA staff and member-growers as they are regularly engaged and called upon to share their knowledge and expertise across a broad range of activities and events. Recent involvement has seen speaking and presentation roles by Lawn Solutions Australia staff at key planning events including Living Cities Forums held in a number of Australian states and Australian Institute of Horticulture (AIH) Conferences and Expo’s staged in in Cairns and Singapore.

The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) has recently held a number of events around the country that included LSA staff and growers sharing their experiences at their ‘Celebrity Lawn Series’ events. These events involved LSA growers talking in detail about particular sites where their turf had been installed. The whole raft of benefits of LSA’s products and services, from growing and harvesting, through to installation and maintenance, as well as the AusGAP certification system were all thoroughly explained to the design and maintenance participants in attendance. Similarly, knowledge sharing has been high on the agenda of the Turf Australia’s ‘Nx Gen Forum’ held in Canberra late last month, with LSA staff and growers again featuring heavily in the program.

The Parks and Leisure Association of Australia (PLA), Housing Industry Association (HIA), the Australian Golf Course Superintendent’s Association (AGCSA) and Turf Australia, have all got national and regional conferences and events coming up over coming weeks; most having called on LSA staff and member-growers to participate in presentation roles, separate to any sponsorship commitments. “The level of respect now garnered by the Lawn Solutions Group in this type of industry representation is unmatched by any other,” says LSA Director Gavin Rogers when talking on the organisations involvement in forthcoming events. “Lawn Solutions Australia is now rapidly gaining broader-industry-recognition of our combined industry-knowledge and experience . . . testimony to this is the value placed on calling on our expert-knowledge for these events from our staff and extensive network of growers,” Rogers says. Other sectors of the industry are also reaching out for LSA’s involvement, if recent industry-group announcements are anything to go by. Lawn Solutions Australia’s Simon Adermann has been awarded a seat on the Advisory Group for the Green Cities ‘Which Plant Where’ Project.

This project is being conducted by Macquarie University – Sydney and has funding from Horticulture Innovation Australia. This project is a five-year plan that will help facilitate greener cities by unlocking opportunities to develop sustainable and resilient green urban spaces. The project aims to bring together a consortium of researchers and growers to investigate the suitability of various plant species under current and future climate scenarios. “Having Simon on this advisory board will help our cause to better integrate turf to their plans and allow for the most recent and appropriate varieties to be included in this database for when turfgrass is specified,” Rogers explains. This follows on from Adermann’s recent inclusion along with other LSA members on Hort Innovation’s Turf Advisory panel that has a major say on how industry research investment funds are directed for the future benefit of the turf industry. “I can’t overstate how proud I am of all of our member growers and staff and particularly Simon’s work on these panels,” says Rogers. “Such exemplary representation of our group to industry has been paramount in cementing LSA’s credentials so professionally on the world stage.”