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Sultans of Sod Need a million feet of grass? The Allen family has all kinds down on the farm
By John Garrity
"Catfish House," says Scott Hampton, spotting the backwoods restaurant. Hampton, director of golf at the University of Florida Golf Course, is driving cautiously, aware that he is in Bulldogs country. (Or maybe he doesn't want the half-empty box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts to slide around on the floor.) "You take the first paved road on the left," says Sherman. "Go approximately 1 1/2 miles. The farm is on the right."
A few minutes later Hampton parks the van in front of a white frame building that resembles a tourist information center. There is a U.S. flag on a tall pole and a small front lawn, mowed like a putting green. "What's our purchase order from these guys?" asks assistant athletic director Chip Howard. Sherman bends over and touches the grass. "Couple hundred thousand dollars." Inside, we are entertained for a few minutes by the farm's operations manager, Al Kent. Then Jimmy Allen appears in the doorway, a trim, white-haired man in polyester slacks, golf shirt and shiny loafers. Smiling broadly, Allen apologizes for keeping us waiting. "I thought you'd all come draggin' in like an ol' bulldog. I didn't know you'd come in here like a snappin' gator!" At Allen's suggestion we pile back into the van, and Kent takes the wheel for a tour of the farm. Allen begins by emphasizing that his turfgrasses are certified by the state of Georgia and that his fields have been fumigated to guarantee varietal purity and no weeds. "This field here is fumigated-certified 419," he says, using shorthand for Tifway 419, one of a series of popular turfgrasses developed at the University of Georgia's renowned Coastal Plain Experiment Station in Tifton. "This is fumigated Centipede" -- we're passing another field -- "and over here we've got fumigated-certified TifEagle. ..." Everything is fumigated-certified, Allen says, because he could be sued for selling contaminated sod, "and I don't want to lose sleep worrying about it." To further guarantee the integrity of his strains, he farms with dedicated equipment. A tractor that has been used in a TifSport field, for instance, is not allowed to be driven onto a TifEagle field, lest the grasses be mixed by the tires. "We're not going to sell you a problem. That's our sales spiel." Before he grew grass for people named Weed, Allen was a struggling mini-tour golfer and then the founder of an accounting firm in Tifton. He says he'll never forget the day in the mid-'80s when his son, Jaimie, stunned the family by announcing that he wanted to farm. "I said, 'Son, if I lowered my head on the desk and cried for a couple of hours, could I change your mind?'" Instead, Jimmy, who already owned some small farms around Adel, converted them from row crops to grass. Today the Allens (daughter Kim Allen Boling is also a co-owner) operate a farm with 66 pivot-irrigation systems and more than 30 deep wells. We pile out of the van at Allen's command and walk into a field of Tifdwarf, the grass that the Florida course will put on its greens. Allen picks up a leftover piece of sod the size of a doormat and a mere inch thick. "We call this Frisbee sod," he says, giving the slab a backhanded spin. The sod flies and lands a few yards away, undamaged. "You can't do that with ordinary sod." He picks up the slab of turf and turns it over, revealing a root network as dense as a brush cut on a porcupine. "Our sod is not lopsided," he adds. Sherman was right. Jimmy Allen is a real good salesman. As it happens, Florida is not buying Tifdwarf sod, but Tifdwarf sprigs (grass stems containing both roots and blades). Bermuda grass hybrids, unlike some other varieties of turfgrass do not propagate by seed but by spreading along the ground like tiny vines. Sprigs are harvested when they are about 2 3/4 inches tall and are sold by the bushel for immediate transplantation. (They are typically spread over prepared soil and rolled in with a cleated roller.) Minutes later we visit the field where Florida's TifSport fairways are sunning lazily. "A million eight [hundred-thousand-square] feet are in this field," says Allen. "We can cut 45 semi loads a day. That's 12 1/2 acres, a half-million feet." Florida has ordered a million feet of TifSport, a hybrid raised for hardiness, disease resistance, rich color and tolerance to low mowing heights, a turfgrass suitable for playing fields and golf courses. The TifSport will be delivered to Gainesville as sod, but to cover all the fairway acreage, Sherman intends to plant it in plugs -- two- or three-inch circles cut from the sod -- that will fill in quickly. He says, "We'll go out with buckets and throw them down and roll them in. A month later you'll be playing golf on this." "I'm a sprig man," says Allen. "Why in the world would you plug something?" Sherman tests the nap of the grass with his feet. "We're hitting a fly over the head with a sledgehammer, we know that," he says. "But this course has to be ready in November, and even two weeks shorter growing time makes a world of difference." Anyway, Allen's sod is too smooth and perfect for Sherman's purposes. "Golf courses are supposed to mimic the effects of erosion," he continues. "We can get a more natural look by plugging." Allen, ever the salesman, pretends not to hear this last blasphemy. However, he is unsparing with one piece of advice: "Fumigate wherever you can." Before tilling, the Florida course received an application of the herbicide Roundup to kill the common bermuda and other turfgrass strains that had taken hold over the years. A few holes received a second treatment of Roundup. Still, even three applications of Roundup, Allen tells Florida superintendent Mark Birdsell, leaves 5% to 10% of the grass in the soil. "Ever been in a parking lot and seen bermuda growing through the asphalt?" says Allen. "That'll give you an idea of how hard it is to kill." To achieve a 99% kill rate, Allen recommends fumigation, a costly procedure ($1,500 to $2,000 an acre) that involves injecting methyl bromide into the soil and covering the ground with plastic for two days. "If you have growback," he warns, "the only way you can fix it is to spend another million or so dollars to regrass." Standing in a sea of green, the members of the Gators' delegation nod like so many dashboard dolls, glumly doing the mental arithmetic. It's pretty obvious where a big chunk of the project's contingency fund is going to go. Jimmy Allen beams. "Y'all ready for lunch?" In the next installment of This Old Course, water-logged Florida is swept into the Atlantic, an ozone hole opens in the atmosphere directly overhead and mole crickets invade the clubhouse. Nobody cares, because the Gators men are still celebrating their stunning team and individual victories in the NCAA championship.
Issue date: June 25, 2001
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