Turf Farming Proves to be a Winner

Bill Casimaty

From: ABC Landline - Reporter: Pip Courtney.

First Published: 10/11/01.

When Tasmanian farmer Bill Casimaty inherited a small property in 1957 he knew he could only survive if the wool industry continued to boom and off farm income flowed in. But at that time the Richmond property, in southern Tasmania was not very productive. It was dry and small. He decided not to sell, choosing instead to pursue a myriad of new and what were then alternative crops and pursuits.

“The farm had been supported by a city business up to that time and it was just after the wool boom, my first wool cheque was a fraction of the first year so it became very obvious very early dryland sheep and cereals were not going to be viable,” Bill Casimaty said. Bill improved viability by growing mushrooms, building irrigation dams and being one of the first in the valley to try new crops.

An Ag college mate was growing turf in Victoria, curious about it, Bill looked at the industry for him, when overseas on a scholarship in ’67. When Bill returned, he set up an instant lawn operation at Richmond. When his friend’s business closed in 1972 Bill bought the machinery and moved into Victoria, adding sports field construction to domestic lawns and golf greens. “Our first major market was Waverly Park in Melbourne and then we became involved with sand profile constructions when that was redeveloped during the packer cricket onset and that got us into cricket wickets,” Bill said.

As the company’s CV grew so did the number of inquiries from overseas. “Our first export dollar was air freighting turf from this farm for the whole of the shartine race track in Hong Kong but that was a one off situation since then we have established growing arrangements with licencees around the world,” Bill said.

Strathayr sports turf has been laid in Malaysia, Singapore, Egypt, Hong Kong, the UK and the US. Despite doing 60 per cent of its business overseas the family farm in Tasmania remains part of the business. It still produces turf, alongside poppies, peas, sheep, barley, vegetable seed crops and a vineyard. Bill’s son Frank runs both operations. The turf is just another crop. “There might be 10 different varieties to choose from and we chose three or four that we think are the best and we try and get different attributes from different varieties shade tolerant or disease resistant and mix the characteristics to get a blend that will be well suited to the wildest range of conditions as possible because you never know where the turf will end up,” Frank said.

The grass seed all comes from Oregon in the US. “This is Kentucky bluegrass it is fine small seeded, 3 of these bags will do a hectare common for lawns this is tall fescue this is bigger seed sown at a lot heavier rate 12 bags for a hectare of turf this is bent grass for golf greens,” Frank said. “We sow it and put on pipes and sprinklers for the first 6 to 8 weeks in summer, they might have to water anything up to three or four times a day just to keep the very small seed moist till it germinates after that we mow and fertilize every two to three weeks mowing at this time of year is three times a week to maintain grass weeds are our biggest problem to control that takes time if everything goes perfectly a spring

sowing can be ready in four to five months but more usual it is 12 months old by the time it goes out,” Frank said. “On this farm we tend to use the same paddocks a lot because we like the soil types and flat paddocks so 3 or 4 years in a row and then a break with a crop of peas or something like that and then back to turf but generally continues with turf,” Frank said.

Frank’s big job this year was winning the contract to surface a new arena in Houston in the US. Frank’s sister Kate runs the mainland arm of ‘Strathayr’, based in Seymour an hour north of Melbourne. She says it is a challenge. “Everyone is a turf expert from your local committee man to punter to footy fan,” Kate said.

Kate and Bill have been keeping close watch on the portable grass tennis court to be used in the Davis cup in Melbourne later this month. The court’s been grown on steel modules, which can be picked up and moved. Worn sections can quickly be replaced. Nearby are two portable cricket wickets that have been used in several international games.

Also at Seymour is the company’s lab. “We believe we have the best turf total system in the world so we want to keep moving ahead with further and we do a lot of research work all the time so we don’t take it lightly to keep in front and be in the race you have to keep improving your product,” Bill said. “In trying to cope with the huge demands and shade and all the other aspects of modern stadia or race tracks and various climates we are currently doing some research on controlling freezing in race tracks for cold parts of the world so we look for sports turf problems and focus on developing practical and economical solutions,” Bill

said.

Last month came a call from the home of cricket - lords in London - wanting to trial portable wickets. The Houston and Lords contracts are particularly satisfying for the Casimatys, after the colonial stadium debacle in Melbourne last year. The Casimatys says the criticism was unfair. “Within the two weeks there were three AFL matches and three concerts, including massive Babs Streisand concerts but then there were three triple headers, two and three AFL matches every week after it was incredible useage that the main problem was that instead of being finished in October with the full summer growth conditions it was finished in March and that is a whole different ball game,” Bill explained.

From that experience has come the modular system to be installed in Houston where the grass can be taken outside when a concert’s on. Bill Casimaty is probably the only Australian farmer who can see the fruits of his labour by turning on the sports channel and watching events from all round the world. He credits not only his children with helping the company grow, but his inventive staff who’ve developed much of the now patented machinery, that’s packed into 40 foot containers and sent overseas when an offshore contract is snared.

The family’s confident its future’s in grass whether its domestic lawns bowling greens, Olympic arenas, gridiron fields or race tracks.