UAE Tour with Living Turf
Phil Dwyer, VP Sales & Marketing • October 20, 2025
ThatchZyme’s customer outreach and education World Turf Tours most recently brought us to the United Arab Emirates with our hosting distribution partner Living Turf. Site visits to top golf courses, cricket and soccer pitches helped us learn more about the unique needs Superintendents and Sports field managers are challenged by when growing performance turfgrass in desert extremes over 12 month seasons. In addition to these visits, the agronomists from Living Turf, ZymeCo, Mitchell Products and the Desert Group held manager educational seminars to share the latest in turfgrass science research: including how sprayable ThatchZyme programs work as a tool for managing thatch accumulation and optimizing organic matter for soil health. We’re grateful to everyone who participated and helped make this trip fantastic.
Turfgrass researchers at ZymeCO have developed and manufactured a proprietary sprayable enzyme now being offered as ThatchZyme to lawn care companies as an effective new solution for managing thatch in lawns.
From innovative origins to on-course applications, we go inside the ThatchZyme story with ZymeCO founder and CTO Dr. Tad Huber, vice president of sales and marketing Dr. Phil Dwyer, and legendary agronomist and industry search executive Armen Suny. What can enzymes do to improve golf and turf maintenance experiences? ZymeCO founder and CTO Dr. Tad Huber explains the experimentation that led to the development of ThatchZyme, a sprayable solution to help golf courses manage thatch. The discovery process included plenty of conversations with his father-in-law Armen Suny , a legendary and curious agronomist. Plus, ZymeCO vice president of sales and marketing Dr. Phil Dwyer joins Huber and Suny to reveal insights from the field. Topics covered on this episode include: ThatchZyme origins and innovation motivation Field observations Enzyme mechanism and design goals Market discovery Research & Development, portfolio expansion and positioning Application strategy and seasonal considerations Distribution and global reach All Golf Course Industry podcasts can be found on the Superintendent Radio Network page of popular distribution platforms. SOURCE: https://www.golfcourseindustry.com/media/thatch-management-golf-courses-enzymes/
ZymeCO welcomes Michael Johnson as Regional Sales Manager. Discover his experience in agronomy, biologicals, and specialty crop sales.
Our partner Living Turf in Australia and New Zealand have been thrilled with the results, sharing the following: “Turf managers across the industry are seeing real results with ThatchZyme® from ZymeCO - healthier profiles, longer roots, reduced thatch, and improved turf performance."
Philip Beaver, Tipton Golf Course, Tipton, IN. Golf Course Superintendent, speaks about his first experience with using ThatchZyme.
Tyler Guy, Golf Course Superintendent for Signal Mountain Golf & Country Club, speaks about his first experience with using AlgaeZyme.
ZymeCO announced the appointment of Erin Ahlers as Vice President, Manufacturing Operations. Ahlers brings more than three decades of agriculture industry experience spanning the full product pipeline, including early R&D, product development and field testing, manufacturing operations, and global quality assurance.
Nutrients often get “stuck” in the soil. FulviZyme acts like a tiny “nutrient shuttle” that grabs those nutrients and helps deliver them to the plants where they can actually use them.
Rob Cooper, Founder of Living Turf, adds “I have known Phil Dwyer, who is behind the science of ThatchZyme, for thirty years - that was the first major tick of approval for me. Now, having trialled the product, seen the data, and understand what it can do, I am eager to share it with our clients and see what it can do
Not all enzymes are the same and where they come from makes a big difference. At ZymeCO, our laccase enzyme is derived from white rot fungi because they are more potent and stable. This means our enzymes are more effective at breaking down thatch and crop residue.