I love early morning meetings. 7:30 AM and we get hit with words like Systemic Acquired Resistance and Activator Triggers. It’s a warm yummy feeling, like maple syrup over bacon and waffles and I couldn’t be more happy to be in the front row. Yum Yum Yum. Pass the Pathology, please!! Especially when we are talking about natural plant defenses.

To be smart and fair, I should digress a moment as to last night’s activities.  Every year our annual meeting includes a dinner. We turn the 130 or so folks loose on a buffet, open several cases of Naumann Merlot and the Orc Feast begins. And when the Merlot and the Turfhead Orcs are melded into one, we take some poor industry notable, give them a microphone and ask them to talk. Some call this a Keynote Speech. I call it Speaker Survival.

Last year, the Orc Feast was Keynoted by none other then our own Maestro McCormick. He did a pretty good job at first by showing pictures of what he thought I looked like in the early online days. Something akin to Santa Claus meets Guy at Bus Stop. Funny. He had the crowd. Then he said something about job loss and the Orcs, had they not eaten the food, would have thrown it. However, they proclaimed The Maestro Turfhead worthy.

This year, our Keynote Victim was supposed to be Jon Scott, Chief of Agronomy for Nicklaus. But some crazy crap about some big contract to build some golf course for something called The Olympics meant that Mr. Scott was required to be on Air Bear and not with us. So…I did what I could and after my Crazy Train Collecting Neighbor declined the invitation I did what any good turfhead would do and reached out to Pat Jones.

Mr. Jones showed up. And he just rocked. The Orcs, lubed by MerlotGrog didn’t take it easy on him and he did fine. No food thrown. Plenty of good opinions. No Blood. No crashed Cruise Ships. Good deal.

But I digress….

Right now, Dr. Clarke is talking about natural disease suppression and that’s a good thing. A really good thing. And I’m thinking…Finally….the chemical companies may actually get pathologists (and TurfOrcs) to think about biology as real and useful.

Imagine such a world. It’s easy if you try.