Davey Tree Flipbooks

41 40 Growth Rings Prior to the Arbor Green patent, Davey arborists fertilized trees by hand – the standard method dating back to the early 1900s. First, they used an auger bit to drill holes in the soil throughout the tree's root zone. en, arborists would pour dry, gran- ular fertilizer into the holes. Often the method forced the fertilizer too deep into the soil, below the roots, where it had little effect. is process proved time-consuming, and it was ultimately more effective in stimulating root growth through aeration of the soil rather than direct fertilization. Funk, whose title then was horticulturalist, made a connection between the ineffective fertilization method and the unused spray trucks. e Davey Technical Service Center looked to develop both a new technique for delivering liquid fertilizer that prevented leaching and a new fertilizer that would offer improved results with the new application method. Liquid fertilizers were applied through the tip of a spray wand that an applicator pushed into the soil. e technical center took the same wand but closed the hole in the end and added lateral holes so the fertilizer would spread out along the same paths as a tree's roots, instead of being injected straight down into the soil. e fertilizer now came into direct contact with the roots and no longer leached – a fact Davey proved through numerous tests with a tracing dye. e new, liquid fertilizer represented a major advancement in tree fertilization. Arbor Green is a high-quality, organic, fine powder that – when mixed with water – forms a suspension and releases nutrients to the tree for two full years. But company management was not yet ready to change the fertilization method that dated back decades until the district manager in Columbus, Ron Beach, gave Funk the opportu- nity to try Arbor Green in the field. Beach was looking to improve the health of the trees on the estate of a client, Darby Dan Farm, in Galloway, Ohio, near downtown Columbus. Beach pitted his best two- man fertilization crew against Funk, who worked solo using the new injector and liquid Arbor Green. In one day, Funk outperformed Beach's crew by doubling the number of trees he could fertilize using the new method. Beach was impressed – even more so when he saw the trees' growth the next year – and helped sell the rest of the company on the new injector and Arbor Green. e new method proved more economical by increasing the use of spray trucks and cutting the application time in half. e burgeoning growth of Davey Lawnscape provided another budding revenue source in the residential and commercial markets. In 1976, Lawnscape's success led to expansion into the Canton and Cleveland markets with an increased staff of 17 employees running 13 trucks. By 1977, Lawnscape grew further and entered the Detroit and Pittsburgh markets. A year later, Lawnscape operations were opening in Buffalo, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Rochester, New York. Still, despite an emphasis on growing the operation, Lawnscape only accounted for about 3 percent of overall company sales in 1977. Utility services remained the top line, accounting for about 67 percent of Davey's overall sales. Residential tree care services constituted about 30 percent of total sales. e same year Arbor Green was patented, the company changed the name of the technical service center to the Davey Horticultural Institute to indicate the actual scope of the staff activities: technical service, applied research, and education. For more than 20 years the technical service center had served as a technical and research facility supporting all Davey service lines. At the time, the institute was run by: Bill Jeffers, director of the institute; Henry Gilbertson, director of technical research; and Roger Funk, director of research. e horticultural institute also included: a corporate photographer, Ronald McNees, who was editor of e Davey Bulletin; a technical publications editor; Ward Peterson, research technician; and a secretary, Allyene Wolf. Jeffers had risen to director of what was then the Davey Technical Service Center in 1963. He started with Davey in 1947 and attended D.I.T.S. that same year. Aside from serving as director of the Institute, Jeffers would eventually be appointed a director of the Davey Company and rise to vice president of research and development. During his career, Gilbertson fulfilled a number of roles. He started at Davey in 1960 as a technical advisor in plant pathology. At one time he managed Davey's diag- nostic lab, and he also served as a long-time instructor for D.I.T.S. roughout his career, Gilbertson helped educate and advise field personnel with regard to treating and caring for clients' landscapes. "I always thought it was a service to the field," he said of his role at Davey. "I enjoyed working with the field people and trying to help them as much as I could. We always were looking for the best way to do the job." Gilbertson recalled in a September 2000 interview that the Horticultural Institute kept Davey on the leading edge of the green industry. Davey's ability to drive industry Chapter 2 Martin L. Davey, Jr., speaks in Philadelphia during U.S. Bicentennial celebration events in 1976. His father, Martin L. Davey, Sr., dedicated 13 trees – one for each of the original colonies – at Independence Square in Philadelphia in 1926. ree of the trees subsequently died, and Brub Davey dedicated three replacements during the 1976 ceremonies. In the summer of 1977 Davey's New Orleans tree care office served the magnificent trees of Oak Alley Plantation, above, on the banks of the Mississippi River in Louisiana.

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