Midwest Sod Council Show

Foxcroft Meadows Sod Farm , Crystal Lake Illinois hosted the Midwest Sod Council Field Day on July 20, 2005. Sod growers from Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio attended this one day event. Trebro Manufacturing featured their HarveStack and AutoStack automatic stacking turf Harvesters. Mike Stever of Stever Turf Farms in Wisconsin demonstrated the production capabilities of his AutoStack to over 200 people that were on hand for the demonstrations. Mike operates his Trebro AutoStack everyday and showed the crowd how fast and easy it is to produce neat and stable 800 square foot pallets. Mike purchased his AutoStack in 2003, and continues to prove that even smaller acreage growers can benefit from using one man harvesting technology. Equally impressive was the HarveStack demonstration by Vinny Leguizamo of American Sod Corporation. Vinny operates one of the 2 HarveStacks owned by George Brandt of American Sod. They feel that these machines are paying for themselves for two reasons. Number 1 - labor savings and Number 2 - increased yield per acre thanks to the floating cutting head with adjustable down pressure that significantly reduces scalped and wasted turf. After the morning demonstrations everyone enjoyed a Barbeque lunch provided by Trebro. As soon as the lunch was over a thunderstorm rolled across the farm and the skies opened up. This was to the joy of everyone as the Chicagoland area had been experiencing severe drought conditions for most of the summer. We would like to thank everyone at Foxcroft Meadows for being an exceptional host, as well as a special thanks to both George Brandt and Mike Stever for demonstrating their machines at the show. The next Midwest Sod Council Show will be held in conjunction with Turfgrass Producers International Summer Convention and Field Days July 23-27, 2007 in Madison, Wisconsin