Features Profiles
From the Editor: April-May 2017

You’ve probably noticed by now that there’s something a little different about this issue of Turf & Rec.

Yes, we’re now called Turf & Rec. We decided that after all these years – this is now the publication’s 30th – that we’d shorten our title somewhat. Our readers have always colloquially referred to us as Turf & Rec rather than the more cumbersome Turf & Recreation, so we figured we’d go with the flow.

And so we now have a newly designed logo to reflect our new name. Of course we didn’t stop there. In keeping with the fact that it’s our 30th anniversary, we’ve gone the extra mile and have given the magazine a long overdue facelift. We believe this redesign will make reading a little easier. It’s better organized and we have some new regular features that we’ve launched with this issue.

First off, we’ll be providing a regular news section toward the front of the magazine. Here, we will provide the latest headlines of what has been happening in the turfgrass industry. Most of this you might have read already on our much improved website (www.turfandrec.com), but these news snippets are here in case you haven’t recently visited us online.

Then, we begin an ongoing series of columns provided to us by the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. We can’t begin to emphasize the importance of health and safety in the professional turf and grounds maintenance industry, and these columns will address various topics that come to the fore all throughout the year.

We begin this issue with a primer on mower operational safety. Upcoming columns will address such matters as coping with extreme humidity while working outdoors and staying clear of lyme disease-causing ticks, and knowing what to do if contact occurs.

Turf & Rec would not be complete without the addition of Duffer. The column at the back of our magazine has been an institution since we were first launched in 1987, and reader surveys tell us it is just as popular as ever. We regret that the last number of issues featured previously published Duffer columns, but it was due to a health setback suffered by our longtime author Ian Robinson. We wish Ian all the best and offer him our sincere thanks for 21 years of outstanding service. Ian was the column’s second author and made a seamless transition from the first. That baton has been passed on yet again with a new author who makes his debut in this issue. We believe Duffer remains in good hands.

Another notable change I’d be remiss to leave unmentioned is the departure of Bart Crandon from Turf & Rec. Bart purchased the magazine in 1994 from its original Vancouver-based owners and successfully published Turf & Rec for the next 22 years out of an office in Delhi, Ont. He sold the publication to nearby Annex Business Media last September and remained on with us until April to facilitate the transition in ownership. Satisfied that his successors are ready to steer the ship in the right direction, he has now begun a new chapter in his life with an early retirement.

We hope you enjoy our new look publication, and we can assure you we’re going to continue to stay of top of the latest developments happening in the turfgrass industry and will present them to you in a lively manner.

We’d like to hear from you as well. Send us an email message or offer a comment via our website or Facebook page with ideas about how we can better deliver our product to you or simply give us your thoughts about our redesign.

And don’t forget to visit our website regularly for ongoing updates from the turfgrass world.