The Vale Resort Tees Up A Six-Figure Golf Investment

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The Vale Resort tees up a six-figure golf investment – The Vale Resort in South Wales has invested more than £400,000 in state-of-the-art John Deere golf course maintenance equipment, supplied by local turf professional dealer Frank Sutton Ltd of Raglan in Gwent.

The Vale Resort Tees Up A Six-Figure Golf Investment

The resort, home to two championship golf courses, has bought 16 new high-tech mowers and Gator utility vehicles to enhance the condition of both the Wales National and The Lake courses, and provide its 550-plus members and thousands of visitors with an even better golfing experience.

The latest purchases include four 8700A fairway mowers, four 2500B triplex greens mowers, four 220SL walk-behind greens mowers and four TS Gators. These have joined an existing John Deere fleet of four 8800 TerrainCut rotary rough mowers, four 2653B triplex utility mowers and another two 220SL greens mowers.

“The way the fairways and greens are cut has a direct effect on the playability of the course,” says the Vale Resort’s head greenkeeper John Borja. “These new John Deere machines will undoubtedly help to improve the condition of both courses and make a difference to the way the game is played on them.

“In order to keep the two courses in pristine condition, the cutting direction is alternated each day so that the ground doesn’t become stressed. This also creates a striping effect which helps players differentiate between the precisely cut tees, fairways and rough. Having the best machinery is key to making sure our team can prepare the courses to their full potential for members and guests.”

Set in 650 acres of Welsh countryside, both courses have a mixture of wooded areas, wide and narrow fairways and water features. At 7433 yards off the championship tees, the Wales National is one of the longest courses in the UK, while The Lake course is slightly shorter at 6436 yards. Both are maintained by a team of 15 year-round staff, with additional seasonal staff required in the busier playing season from March to October.

“Our aim, every day, is to ensure that our golf courses are presented to the highest standards possible and can be fully enjoyed by the players,” says John Borja. “With the excellent support and after-sales service provided by John Deere and dealer Frank Sutton, we look forward to doing so for many years to come.”

Lancaster GC Chooses Wiedenmann

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Lancaster GC chooses Wiedenmann duo for rough management – One of Lancashire’s finest venues, the Lancaster Golf Club has opted for a Wiedenmann Terra Rake and a Wiedenmann Super 500.

Lancaster GC Chooses Wiedenmann

The James Braid designed course, coveted for its wide fairways and spectacular 18th hole, is about to embark on a major rough management programme.

Carl Hamlett, Course Manager, said: “We’ve many undulations and traditional ‘ridge and furrow’. We know the Super 500 follows contours easily without scalping and produces a consistent height of cut, whether scarifying or flail mowing. When we had it out for demo it just outdid everything else we’d seen”

“The Terra Rake will work in tandem. It scarifies, pulls out thatch and can help us with a long list of other tasks. We’re really happy to have them both on board.”

Supplying both machines was Darren Barker, Sales Director at Balmers GM, Burnley branch,  Wiedenmann UK’s local  dealer for the area.

Dennis And SISIS Announce Cricket Renovation Event

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Dennis and SISIS announce Cricket renovation event – Dennis and SISIS have announced that they will be hosting a cricket renovation event at St Albans School, Woollam Trust Playing Fields on Tuesday 18 July 2017.

Dennis and SISIS announce Cricket renovation event

This event follows on from the hugely successful ‘For the Groundsmen by The Groundsmen’ series of seminars that started in 2011 and have brought together groundstaff representing schools, universities, clubs and 1st class and test match venues around the country with the ultimate aim of enhancing their education.

The event will be a mix of indoor presentations and outdoors practical sessions.

The day will commence with indoor presentations from Chris Wood (ECB Pitch Consultant), Alex Vickers, Keith Exton and Rob Kendle covering key topics such as ‘Principles of decision making for Autumn renovations and profile reading’, ‘profile inspections’, ‘renovations and aeration’.

Outdoor practical sessions will be across three squares with each square discussing individual topics, renovations and preparation on a budget, contractor renovations and aeration. These will be hosted by Ian Smith, Andy Clarke, Rob Kendle and Keith Exton supported by event sponsors Dennis & SISIS, Boughton Loam, cricketworld.com, Durant Cricket, Ecosol, Headland Amenity, Limagrain, Poweroll and RT Machinery.

There is no charge for attending and all delegates will receive a complimentary lunch.

To register your interest please contact Roger Moore at Dennis & SISIS on 01332 824777 or emailroger.moore@dennisuk.com.

Further information about the range of maintenance products available can be found by visitingwww.dennisuk.com / www.sisis.com.

EU Declared Monsanto Weedkiller Safe

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EU declared Monsanto weedkiller safe after intervention from controversial US official – European Food Safety Authority dismissed a study linking glyphosate to cancer following counsel with an EPA official allegedly linked to the company and who figures in more than 20 lawsuits

EU declared Monsanto weedkiller safe after intervention from controversial US official

 The European Food Safety Authority dismissed a study linking a Monsantoweedkiller to cancer after counsel from a US Environmental Protection Agency officer allegedly linked to the company.

Jess Rowlands, the former head of the EPA’s cancer assessment review committee (CARC), who figures in more than 20 lawsuits and had previously told Monsanto he would try to block a US government inquiry into the issue, according to court documents.

The core ingredient of Monsanto’s RoundUp brand is a chemical called glyphosate, for which the European commission last week proposed a new 10-year license
Doubts about its regulatory passage have been stirred by unsealed documents in an ongoing US lawsuit against Monsanto by sufferers of non-hodgkins lymphoma, who claim they contracted the illness from exposure to RoundUp.
“If I can kill this, I should get a medal,” Rowlands allegedly told a Monsanto official, Dan Jenkins, in an email about a US government inquiry into glyphosate in April 2015.
In a separate internal email of that time, Jenkins, a regulatory affairs manager, said that Rowlands was about to retire and “could be useful as we move forward with [the] ongoing glyphosate defense”.
Documents seen by the Guardian show that Rowlands took part in a teleconference with Efsa as an observer in September 2015.
Six weeks later, Efsa adopted an argument Rowlands had used to reject a key 2001 study which found a causal link between exposure to glyphosate and increased tumour incidence in mice.
Rowlands’ intervention was revealed in a letter sent by the head of Efsa’s pesticides unit, Jose Tarazona, to Peter Clausing, an industry toxicologist turned green campaigner.
In the missive, Tarazona said that “the observer from the US-EPA [Rowlands] informed participants during the teleconference about potential flaws in the Kumar (2001) study related to viral infections.”
Efsa’s subsequent report said that the Kumar study “was reconsidered during the second experts’ teleconference as not acceptable due to viral infections”.
Greenpeace said that news of an Efsa-Rowlands connection made a public inquiry vital. “Any meddling by Monsanto in regulatory safety assessments would be wholly unacceptable,” said spokeswoman Franziska Achterberg. “We urgently need a thorough investigation into the Efsa assessment before glyphosate can be considered for re-approval in Europe.”
Socialist MEPs last week said that they too would call for an inquiry unless outstanding questions about the relicensing were cleared up.
A reply to Tarazona’s letter from Clausing, seen by the Guardian, also says: “In the light of Jess Rowland’s role in the assessment of carcinogenicity of glyphosate in the US as reflected by the internal Monsanto documents, I have serious concerns that he might have influenced the decision by providing wrong information which has not been scrutinised by Efsa and its experts.”
A Monsanto spokesman said: “Plucking a single email out of context doesn’t change the fact that the US EPA and regulators around the world, as well as a branch of the World Health Organization (WHO) that analysed pesticide residues, have concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans.”
The WHO’s pesticides panel ruled last May that glyphosate was probably not carcinogenic to humans through diet, a year after the WHO’s cancer arm came to the opposite conclusion.
Efsa though remains bullish about the probity of its assessment of the most heavily used weedkiller in human history.
Tarazona declined to comment on Rowlands’ contribution to the Efsa study but said that Kumar’s paper had been compromised by the use of Swiss albino mice.
“The issue of ‘high background incidence’ is something common to all studies that use that strain of mouse,” he said. “There was [also] the fact that the effect was observed only at a very high dose level.”
Other toxicologists, such as Prof Ivan Rusyn, who contributed to a WHO assessment of glyphosate, contend that where sample sizes are limited, “the most informative animal studies are those conducted with sufficiently high doses”.
Clausing said that there was “almost no difference” between malignant lymphomas in Kumar’s control group, compared to others.
To read the original article from The Guardian, click here

SCH Ltd Has One Of Its Busiest Quarters

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SCH (Supplies) Ltd has had one of its busiest quarters since it began trading more than thirty years ago.

SCH Ltd Has One Of Its Busiest Quarters

We are delighted to be taking so many orders – a sign, we feel, of the faith that our customers and dealers have in us as a company.

This has been a busy time for us also because our Managing Director, Andrew Rodwell, has suffered a little of late with a few health problems. We are glad to say he is now on the road to recovery and has certainly lost none of his enthusiasm, continuing to invent new machines and investigate various new ways of taking our products to the market.

Andrew is still very much in overall command of SCH but has handed over the day to day running of the business to Ian Holder, SCH’s General Manager, and to Jenny Wiggins, Sales Administrator.

Ian has been with SCH for 12 years. He knows the operational aspects of the factory inside out and can step in with seemingly boundless energy, and take over in all departments where needed. Ian also has in intuitive understanding of the SCH machinery. Having been closely involved in the development of some of the SCH products, he has an eye for detail and an ability to spot potential problems from a mile away!

Jenny keeps the office running like clockwork. Answering customer questions, arranging courier deliveries and trying her best to keep Andrew in order means Jenny has her work cut out. Her knowledge of the SCH products is incredible and she always goes the extra mile to ensure our customers and dealers receive the best possible service from SCH. Having worked here for 15 years, there is nothing that Jenny can’t handle and no problem to which she cannot find a solution.

So with Ian and Jenny on board and with the support of the rest of the team, Andrew is confident that SCH will continue to go from strength to strength. He can enjoy a slower pace of life, enjoy his (semi) retirement and oversee the next chapter in the SCH story.

Thanks to all our dealers and customers, many of whom have been dealing with us since we first began trading all those years ago. And here’s to the next thirty years.