Spartan Mowers Releases 2025 Product Lineup
Jessica Schwartz
First Zero-Turn Comes Off The Line At Newly Expanded Altoz Facility
The newly expanded Altoz facility in Red Lake Falls, MN, held a celebration for the first zero-turn mower to come off their production line. Mayor Allen Bertilrud and Altoz owners Dennis and Terri Brazier, along with company staff, erupted into applause as the TRX tracked zero-turn mower rolled down the line. The company announced that, as production ramps up, it will increase hiring efforts at the facility. The new, 75,000 square-foot production facility is up and running while work continues to complete the $15 million first phase of the project. “When you look at the size of this building and everything that has gone into it since our groundbreaking in early May, it is amazing the amount of work that has been accomplished. We thank everyone involved for their efforts to achieve this,” said Mike Hugg, director of operations. “As we expand our product offerings into multi-seasonal equipment, this new state-of-the-art facility will allow us to increase production to meet our current and future year-round demand,” said Karl Bjorkman, director of sales and marketing. The building is one of the largest, if not the largest, in the city of Red Lake Falls. 23,000 yards of material were moved to prepare the building site. 2,600 yards of concrete, 42 miles of rebar, and more than 150,000 fasteners were used to construct the building. For more information on Altoz, visit here. For more on the Altoz TSX 561 i mower, see this Turf article.
New Celebration Hybrid™ Bermudagrass Released By Mississippi State University
Mississippi State University’s Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station officially released Celebration Hybrid™ Bermudagrass at the 2022 Turfgrass Research Field Day held in Starkville, MS. The new cultivar is the first release out of the “Celebration X” breeding program, which stemmed from the idea of cross-pollinating industry standard Celebration® Bermudagrass with numerous attractive Bermudagrass genotypes collected and maintained over the years at MSU to create new grasses. The goal of the program was to take the top characteristics of Celebration and develop new grasses with better cold tolerance, a finer texture, fewer seed heads, and less thatch. These grasses will be used in home lawns, golf courses, parks, and sports fields across the country and around the world. The Celebration X breeding program was initiated in 2014 as a partnership between MSU and Sod Solutions, a turfgrass research, development, and marketing company. Celebration Hybrid is the initial release from the Celebration X Program with more to be released next year and will have limited commercial availability by late Summer 2024. Celebration’s ability to block well, resist drought, and endure shade better than other Bermudas has made it one of the best options on the market over the past two decades. Five grasses from the Celebration X program were chosen to be entered into the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program’s 2019 National Bermudagrass Test. This is a five-year trial being conducted at universities across the nation and experimental varieties are evaluated along with commercial varieties. Progress reports for 2020 and 2021 have ranked ...
