The Nuturf business, was first formed in the mid 1960’s by Geoff Goodman. The business was originally named ‘Chemspray’ and was principally focused on the manufacture and wholesale of Home Garden plant protection and plant nutrition products to a national distribution base.
In the mid 1970’s, Chemspray acquired a turf retail company named “Bowling and Golf Equipment”, a business focused on selling plant protection, plant nutrition and related equipment products to a customer base predominantly made up of bowling and golf clubs situated on the eastern seaboard.
The business expanded and developed though the 70’s and 80’s, due to its strong product portfolio and ability to bring unique products to the market, becoming the pre-eminent supplier of turf products in the Australian market. With this success came a pressure to change the turf division name to something that represented more than pesticides. Hence, the Chemspray business was divided into two distinct sections.
- Chemspray Home Garden
- Chemturf
Nufarm, an emerging, Australian based Agrochemical manufacturer acquired the Chemspray & Chemturf business in the early 1990’s. After a couple of years of trading, Nufarm made the decision to sell off the Home Garden division “Chemspray”, although they remained a major manufacturer to the business for many years and still remain a key manufacturer to this day. Nufarm retained the Chemturf business, which had a better fit for their ever developing agricultural chemical range.
In 2002, with increased industry awareness to chemicals and the stigma that they represented to the wider community, the decision was made by Richard Waterworth, the General Manager at the time, to change the name from “Chemturf” to “Nuturf”. This decision was made to better signify what the business represented due to an ever evolving product portfolio, that was now much more than just agricultural chemicals and fertilisers, but also turf seed, soil surfactants and colourants.
By this stage, the Nuturf business had evolved from a bowling and golf focused company into an Amenity horticulture Specialist, focused on markets outside of fine turf, expanding into Councils, Contractors, Racetracks, Schools, Turf farms and Landscape.
In 2005, Nuturf was acquired by CK Lifesciences International Holdings Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Cheung Kong Group. Their purpose was to grow their agricultural and horticultural businesses within the Australian market. At this stage, CK Lifesciences already owned a significant number of businesses focused within this market, including Amgrow Home Garden (ironically, a company which had acquired the Chemspray home garden business in 2001), Paton Fertilisers and Fertico.
In 2011, Amgrow Pty Ltd was formed, the holding company for CK Lifescience’s acquisitions in the Australian agricultural market. In essence, Nuturf is now a part of the Amgrow group of companies and continues to be market leader in the Turf and Amenity Horticulture markets in Australia.
Nuturf has had a proud history of being the innovators of new technologies in the Australian Turf and Amenity Horticulture market. Some of the innovation that Nuturf can be attributed to bringing into the market place, is as follows;
- Acelepryn Insecticide
- Nominee Herbicide
- Ecogrow (Entompathogenic Nematodes)
- Monument Herbicide
- Banner Maxx
- Primo Maxx Plant Growth Regulator
- Heritage Fungicide
- Subdue
- Scotts Fertilisers
- Lesco Fertilisers
- Triazone Liquid Fertilisers
- Stamina Soil Surfactants
- Millennium Herbicide
- Dimension EW Herbicide
- Exporsan Herbicide
- Tupersan Herbicide