Horticulture industry honours McMaugh

 

One of the Australian turf industry’s most revered and influential practitioners, Peter McMaugh, has joined the elite of the Australian horticultural community after being named the 2009 recipient of the Graham Gregory Award. 

McMaugh, a life member of the NSW Golf Course Superintendents Association and past recipient of the AGCSA’s highest honour – the Distinguished Service Award – becomes the first individual from the turf industry to receive the award which is widely recognised as horticulture’s most prestigious honour.

The award is named after the late Graham Gregory AO who was the first chairman of Horticulture Australia Limited’s predecessor the Horticultural Research and Development Corporation. Recipients of the award must have established excellence in an area that has enhanced or developed the horticultural industry through activities such as research and development, education, training, technology transfer or advertising and promotion.

As well as the honour of being recognised as one of the industry’s elite, McMaugh received a $10,000 cash prize and a commemorative bronze medal which was presented by recently retired HAL chair Dr Nigel Steele Scott. A 10-minute video presentation accompanied the bestowing of the award in which members of the turf industry, including John Neylan, David Nickson, Rob Davey, Greg Miller and John Banks, heaped praised on McMaugh and recounted some of his achievements which made him such a deserving winner.

McMaugh, the first Australian scientist to specialise in turf research, has devoted the past 45 years to the turf industry and among his many achievements have been creating the name for Australia’s most recognised buffalo grass, Sir Walter, developing the drop-in wicket in the early days of one day cricket and establishing Australia’s first turf research organisation.

As director of the Grass Research Bureau NSW, renamed the Australian Turf Research Institute (ATRI) in 1970, McMaugh oversaw the discovery of a new species of nematode that was devastating turf in NSW’s Hunter Region, which led to its control. He co-developed innovative machinery to improve turf maintenance and developed controls to eradicate invasive species in bentgrass putting greens and couchgrass fairways, thus helping to improve the quality of Australian golf courses.

In 1974 he set up a turf production farm, Qualturf, and from 1979 he also ran a full-time consultancy, Turfgrass Scientific Services. Through this company he has assisted hundreds of fellow growers increase their productivity and profitability. He has also worked with many golf course architects to develop new courses.

McMaugh’s couchgrass collection provided the Australian industry with the superior varieties Winter Green and Windsor Green. These varieties have been the base from which other Australian plant breeders have developed the new superior couch varieties Grand Prix and Winter Gem. McMaugh also jointly developed the new improved buffalo variety Kings Pride.

McMaugh’s scientific expertise, innovation and commercial accomplishments saw many major projects come his  way including construction or turfing major sporting venues including Sydney Football Stadium, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Fox Studios, Royal Randwick Racecourse, Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens and seven polo fields at the late Kerry Packer’s property.

Against this impressive array of achievements, McMaugh says the biggest challenge of his career was setting up turf farms in China. Over a 10-year period Peter established a turf farm in a geographically challenging area of China. It was both a technical and farming success and the model has been replicated all over China.

Over the course of his long career McMaugh says he has witnessed considerable change in the industry, in particular the technological advances.

“Forty years ago most of the turf was cut out of cow paddocks. Now we’re growing single strain grasses. Grasses are being selected for performance and the quality of turf available to consumers is totally different, says McMaugh.

“The industry has gone from being a cottage industry to being a very substantial horticultural industry. The thing I’m most proud of is still working in an industry in which I was the first scientist to work full time in Australia.”