Civitas beta tests IPM costing model

The ability to save superintendents time, money and resources is the silver bullet, and Civitas believes they have found the solution with its IPM costing model.

Civitas, a subsidiary of Suncor, launched six years ago and is in beta testing of the IPM costing model, a costing tool that allows superintendents to forecast and compare resources their courses consume.

What started as a concept from the mind of Erik Spong, a former superintendent and now representative of Civitas, turned into a Excel spreadsheet that allowed him to see what his course spent on various resources.

The only problem, Spong was the only one who could read and understand the Excel spreadsheets.

With the help of Civitas in the start of spring 2014, the IPM costing model is on the Web and is already mobile responsive. Superintendents can customize, compare and forecast the amount and the cost of fungicides, insecticide, herbicides, PGRs, Wetting agents, phosphates, fertilizers and water.

“Civitas IPM costing tool basically empowers you to do one day forecasting what used to take a month,” says Spong, a Civitas client for since 2006 but joined the team within the last two years.

It also integrates weather forecasts and allows superintendents to send reports to their management with one click.

“Once you see all of the benefits and the bottom line results it’s kind of hard not to talk about it. I figured I might as well spread this news full-time,” Spong says.

On top of the IPM Costing Model, Civitas has a new herbicide, WEEDfree. It has been approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but is currently still being going through U.S. state registration.