The Star: April 22, 2021

The Star Thursday April 22 2021
18
Our people – Mark Shaw
Turf expert takes the green grass of home
Volunteering to look
after his club’s cricket
pitch led to Mark
Shaw venturing onto
runways at some of
the world’s busiest
airports. Chris Barclay
discovers the turf
expert certainly doesn’t
have a job that is like
watching grass grow
You’re the Turf Business
manager of PGG Wrightson
Turf. How did you get
involved with this growth
industry?
My father and four of his
brothers worked at Pyne Gould
Guinness in the seeds business.
I came straight from school
and worked there for two years
before I went to Australia for 18
months and cleaned windows
on high-rises. I came back for a
job at Mt Hutt, my goal was to
travel around the world skiing
but I fell off my skateboard on
the Port Hills, cut my hand,
missed the (ski) season and went
back to PGG and now I work for
PGG Wrightson Seeds. I’ve never
left. I head up the turf business
for Oceania. That’s golf courses,
sports fields, council’s amenity
spaces. In a nutshell, anywhere
they mow grass.
How did you end up focusing
on the turf aspect of the
business?
Sport. I didn’t really have an
affiliation with farming. I was
looking after a cricket wicket
for the Addington Cricket Club.
We moved into the senior A
comp and we basically had to
rebuild our pitch. Someone had
to look after the wicket and the
practice pitch. The previous turf
manager (at PGW Seeds) was
actually the head groundsman
at (Hamilton’s) Seddon Park, Ian
McKendry. He helped me out.
Macca cut his teeth at Lancaster
Park under Russell Wyllie back
in the day. When Ian came into
the business as a turf agronomist
and started the evaluation
process you can see out here
now … that’s what sparked my
interest.
WELL GROUNDED: Turf expert Mark Shaw gets down to earth with a grid pattern of
grasses at PGG Wrightson Seeds research centre in Lincoln. PHOTO: GEOFF SLOAN
How do you become an
authority on turf?
It’s an apprenticeship scheme,
similar to any trade. Three-years
on the job with a number of
block courses you go through, as
a builder would do. I completed
my level 3 qualification while I
was working at Barrington
Park.
At first glance this looks like
a pretty laid back place to work.
There’s a mini rugby field with
posts and bucket seats from
Lancaster Park, a putting green
with a bunker full of golf balls.
They’re there for demonstration
purposes. This is the plant
breeding and research centre. It
covers grain, through to forage,
through to brassicas, through to
turf. It takes up to 10 years and
about a million dollars to bring
a cultivar to market. In any one
year we’ll probably throw out a
thousand potential cultivars.
No disrespect to leafy
Barrington Park and its
playground, but you get to go to
a higher class of sporting venue
these days don’t you?
We’re very lucky that we get to
visit some pretty amazing places
on a daily basis. Eden Park to
Kauri Cliffs to Forsyth Barr
Stadium to Jack’s Point
Golf club. You kind of take it for
granted.
EXPORT
QUALITY: Grass
developed
in Lincoln
has been
sown at the
headquarters
of Argentine
football giant
Boca Juniors in
Buenos Aires.
And even further afield?
I’ve been to Thomond Park
in Limerick and been reminded
Munster beat the All Blacks (in
1978). Ascot (home of racing’s
Gold Cup) utilise our grass.
I’ve also been to a number of
stadiums in South America in
recent years. Boca Juniors (La
Bombonera) and River Plate
(Estadio Monumental) and the
San Isidro rugby club where the
All Blacks train (in Argentina’s
capital Buenos Aires), they all
use our grass seed. A number
of years ago on a trip back from
Europe I visited The Royal Golf
Club in Bahrain. Now we analyse
their soil tests and provide them
with a fertiliser and agrichemical
programme.
Golf is another major driver
for the international market
isn’t it?
It certainly is, if you go to
any of the top clubs in the UK,
they will be using our (cultivars
of) browntops on their greens.
Our plant breeders do a lot of
work drawing material out of
older New Zealand golf courses
that are managed with very
low level inputs. These grasses
basically evolve by themselves.
We put them through a breeding
process that can take 10 years
before trialing them in the UK.
We export between 60 and
100 tonnes of browntop to that
market every year.
So what you’re saying is
a sample taken from the
nine-hole up the road at
Lincoln could eventually undo
the favourite at The Open
Championship?
Yes. Very, very easily. Our
latest browntop is named
after Sir Bob Charles. The
genetics of that cultivar come
from Balmacewen, Fairlie and
Methven golf clubs.
This sounds ridiculous, but
explain the distinction between
the 18th green at Royal Troon
and a rugby field?
There’s different growth habits.
Forsyth Barr (in Dunedin) is
a ryegrass, a bunch type plant
that grows very actively in
cooler conditions. As a species it
requires high levels of nitrogen
to keep the plant stimulated and
growing actively. Browntop is a
low nutrient requirement plant,
it doesn’t require a lot of nitrogen
to keep it healthy. Browntops can
tolerate mowing heights down
to 2-½ to 3mm. If you mow a
ryegrass down to 2-½ to 3mm
you will lose ground cover pretty
quickly. Your stadium turf …
that’s predominately a turf-type
perennial that’s tighter and finer
in the leaf than a forage type
that’s grazed by cows.
Heading back abroad,
the company established a
foothold in Uruguay about 15
years ago and it’s not all about
grass is it?
When I first went over there
they were marking soccer fields
with a paint roller and 20 litre
buckets of house paint. It was
taking them three hours and
you could imagine the quality of
it. There were drips of paint all
over the ground, footprints going
through it. We took a battery
powered machine over there and
showed them how to mark a field
in 20 minutes with a paint that’s
safe for use on turf.
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