The Davidson Family- Masters of Turf

While Jimboomba Turf’s origins started in 1973, the future of the business was truly cemented in 1981 when Ray Davidson and his son Lynn purchased the business. It was on a serendipitous trip to Brisbane when Ray happened to see a truck filled with rolls of turf. Soon after Ray and Lynn were working on a windmill some 10 miles from the house, where Ray was reading the lunch paper wrapping, when he noticed an advertisement for a turf farm. Sitting in the dust, under a lonely tree, Lynn had no idea what he was talking about.

This piqued enough interest for Ray to go take a look at the farm on his next trip to Brisbane, where he called Lynn and implored him to go take a look as well.

The captivation was being next to a big river, with water on demand, Ray’s logic was that the haunting droughts of Western Queensland, would be a thing of the past. On the 18th of July 1981 Ray and Lynn Davidson became the new owners of Jimboomba Turf. The family connection was further strengthened later in the 1980’s with Lynn’s sister Cherie joining the business.

The Davidson family were no strangers to working the land, with a 100 year history on the sheep and cattle station “Manfred” in the Longreach district, where 10,000 sheep and 1,000 head of cattle were run. A proud and loyal family, the family business has even had the same bank for over 100 years! It is tough land out Longreach way and to work that land you need the right kind of temperament. It is not enough to just work hard and show up, it also requires a certain spark for innovation and nous. It is this spark and nous that has kept Jimboomba Turf at the forefront of the Australian turf industry for the last 40 years. This focus on innovation and the drive to find new green solutions has seen the business regularly recognised, including winning The Queensland 400 Innovation awarded in 1998, along with several successful patents including Stay Turf, which won an award on the ABC’s The New Inventors program in 2006. The continued innovation and excellence in turfgrass saw Lynn inducted into the Turf Australia Hall of Fame in 2017.

Amongst all of this, Lynn’s ever supportive wife Carolyn, and their youngest daughter Dallas, have gone back to their roots, and some 15 years ago established Towri Sheep Cheeses. Apart from milking the Awassi ewes and making fine cheeses, Towri Sheep Cheeses were also involved in a large-scale Awassi Embryo transfer program, where some 4,000 embryos were shipped off farm, a complex husbandry process. Although milking sheep is a far cry from shearing them, the connection with the animal remains. Towri Sheep Cheeses is now a recognised brand in some of Brisbane’s top end restaurants.

While inventing things is fun, to fund innovation you need sales, and Jimboomba Turf has thrived in this area. While the domestic market of “mums and dads” might be the backbone of the business, the work of the team in the commercial and export areas really put Jimboomba Turf on the map. With 40 years of continuous contracts with Brisbane City Council supplying turfgrass for spaces across the city, Jimboomba Turf, has expanded to become the go to turf supplier for large scale projects across South East Queensland. This has seen grass from Jimboomba Turf installed at Brisbane Botanical Gardens, Southbank Parklands, Port of Brisbane and Noosa Foreshore, to name a few.

The continued innovation in this space has seen TifTuf from Jimboomba Turf become the go-to grass for the Dog-off-leash areas across Brisbane, greatly reducing the inputs required to maintain these parks while also increasing their lifespan.

As the Jimboomba Turf business has grown so has the scale of their projects, with a move into golf courses in the 1980’s. High profile courses across the region became Jimboomba Turf grassed courses, from Hope Island, Sanctuary Cove, Twin Waters & Brookwater Golf Course. The success of these projects saw the business move into exports with courses from China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates all featuring Jimboomba Turf grass. More recently in the golf space Jimboomba Turf’s innovative nature came into play once more, devising a system of refrigerated transport to supply Killara Golf Course in Sydney with Sir Grange. With nearly 900km’s from farm to client, this project perfectly suited the out-of-the-box thinking that drives Jimboomba Turf.

The final feather in the commercial cap was the inclusion of turf into Bunnings Warehouse stores. When Lynn first flew down to Melbourne to suggest turf as a product to the Bunnings management, the idea was not warmly received. In fact it took several trips to Melbourne to get the idea off the ground. Finally the initiative received the greenlight, and has now expanded far beyond Jimboomba Turf, with LSA forging a national footprint.

This mix of domestic and commercial work has translated into dominating national sales. In fact Jimboomba Turf dominated the Sir Walter/LSA awards over the years winning the award for the greatest national sales from 2013 to 2018, only finally eclipsed in 2019 when Coolabah Turf snuck past them. This was a bittersweet moment as Lynn’s commitment to growing the industry saw him share a lot of his knowledge and encouragement with Suzie & Brad Shearer and the Coolabah team, so while it hurt to lose the number one position it was at least nice to lose it to a team that shared a mutual admiration. The next challenge lies in finding the next innovation to reclaim that top spot from the Coolabah Team.

Long a family affair, the family connection has taken a big step in 2021. Fuelling that drive for innovation the third generation of Davidson’s has recently joined the business. Lynn’s eldest daughter Renee has stepped into a leadership role after a long career in the police service.

Renee is no stranger to Jimboomba Turf having spent her summer holidays as a teenager spot spraying weeds on the farm. When she started her tertiary studies in Justice she moved into a casual role delivering turf samples to Bunnings stores.

In 2004 she started at the QLD Police Service Academy, graduating in 2005 with her first posting in Brisbane. Upon finishing her first year training Renee got her first permanent posting in Cairns, where she was deployed across the Cape York District. It was while in the Far North that she met her partner and Fiance Alana. A move back to Brisbane in 2008 saw Alana join the business working part-time under the guidance of long serving farm manager Daryl Pearce at the Allenview Production Facility.

In 2010 Renee successfully won a position within the Logan District Child Protection and Investigation Unit (CPIU), which began a 10 year long career in investigating serious offences committed upon children. This led to a posting in the Thursday Island CPIU, in the Torres Strait. Renee encourages everyone reading this to put it on your travel bucket list (but make sure you go in Winter if you aren’t a fan of humidity), it is a precious part of Queensland. A further promotion to a management position as Detective Sergeant took Renee and Alana to Mt Isa where they remained until 2020.

With Cherie’s declining health in 2020 Renee felt, and along with Alana’s support, that it was time to return to base and support Lynn and the family business. With Alana’s previous knowledge from working on the farm under Daryl and her management experience, she was in a prime position to take on managing the farm under the guidance of Lynn. Renee and Alana are both still finding their feet in their new roles, but are both committed to bringing new life into the business and are developing new strategies through technological solutions to make turf production from the paddock to the customer more efficient. What they have identified thus far and from talking to counterparts across the country is that the industry is struggling with finding the right technological solutions to make the dream work. Renee and Alana are now focused on bringing their management and systems based experience into Jimboomba Turf to make that dream a reality, not just for Jimboomba Turf but for the industry at large.

“I believe as a collective we need a unified front on finding a solution that makes this industry more cost and time efficient in this space so we can all focus on what matters; growing top quality turfgrass for our customers. Being able to adapt quickly to the changing economic, social & environmental climate, is critical to always staying that one step ahead”. Renee Davidson

Lynn’s industry observations, “at this point in history, the Turf Farming industry is like no other primary industry, there are old heads and young heads, in that there is nearly a blanket succession process happening across the country. Hopefully, this succession transition will work through positively and the industry can grow from the younger thinking, with grey hair encouragement.”

Sadly in May 2020, Lynn’s sister Cherie lost her battle with ovarian cancer, this was a tremendous blow to the family and the business. Cherie is remembered as being the administrative backbone of the business, ruling this responsibility with an iron rod. Her quick wit and devotion to her staff will be sadly missed.

With the addition of Renee and Alana, this devotion to staff will continue as no future is guaranteed without valued and committed team and the business is very grateful to have an awesome crew across the board, all pulling together.

With some new and innovative strategies in the pipeline, along with the fresh blood of Renee and Alana the future is very bright for Jimboomba Turf.