The Beijing National Stadium, nicknamed the "Birds Nest", covers 25.8 hectares of open ground space and will seat as many as 91,000 spectators during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. 

The sheer size of the construction and the lack of light penetration into the stadium due to its unique design, made it difficult to establish turf inside the stadium. 

Instead, the turf for the stadium was produced on a modular, fully mobile cropping system. The elaborate ITM System developed by GreenTech in the USA, allowed the turf to be grown off-site and placed inside the stadium prior to events.

Assisting the China National Sports Group (CNSG) to produce a world-class standard of turf was a challenge that the Syngenta China Turf Team, with a little help from their Australian counterparts, was eager to take on.

Under the sponsorship arrangement that began in March this year, the team provided all the disease prevention products to be used on the 1.6 hectares of turf from March 2008 through to the end of the Games.

Australia's Syngenta Professional Products Technical Manager, Dr Henk Smith, was an integral part of the team. Dr Smith created a full prevention program, based on the Australian GreenSure Plan, using Banner MAXX, Heritage MAXX, Subdue MAXX and Daconil Weather Stik.

When asked whether or not he felt any additional pressure to perform based on the enormity of the task at hand, Dr Smith said he took it all in his stride.

"It was just part of my job!" he explained.