Century Up At Gleneagles

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Century Up At Gleneagles: Gleneagles in Perthshire, Scotland has recently celebrated the 100th birthday of its iconic King’s and Queen’s Courses, with a little help from local John Deere dealer Sandy Armit of Double A.

Designed by James Braid and created using nothing more than manual labour and horse and cart, both courses were officially opened on 1 May 1919 and have an illustrious history.

Century Up At Gleneagles

The King’s Course hosted a famous match between the ‘Big Three’ of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player in 1966, as well as the popular Bell’s Scottish Open on the European Tour from 1987 to 1994, the largest spectator event after The Open at the time. The Queen’s Course has also hosted great names from entertainment and sport, including Sean Connery and Alan Shepard, the only man to hit a golf shot on the moon!

In more recent times, and under Gleneagles’ new ownership by Ennismore, both courses have benefited from extensive renovation projects. These have seen them realigned to Braid’s original design vision with wider fairways, bringing strategically placed bunkers back in play, and the reintroduction of Scottish heather in key areas.

As part of the special centenary celebrations, Gleneagles staff recreated several historic archive photographs from the 1920s, including an image of a tractor pulling a set of gang mowers on a fairway. This was replicated with a 1941 John Deere Model B tractor, equipped with a set of trailed cylinder gang mowers. The tractor is owned by Sandy Armit and is usually on display at the dealership’s headquarters in Cupar, Fife.

Gleneagles signed an exclusive contract with John Deere in 2017 for the supply of golf course maintenance equipment and related technology to the three championship golf courses at the award winning hotel and golf resort.

Century Up At Gleneagles

John Deere also celebrated its own centenary last year, as March 14, 2018 marked the 100th anniversary of the day Deere & Company bought the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company of Waterloo in Iowa and officially entered the tractor business for which it would become famous worldwide; tractors are still made at Waterloo to this day. The Model B tractor that was loaned to Gleneagles is still John Deere’s all-time bestselling model, with 300,000 sold from 1935 to 1953.

For more information, visit: www.JohnDeere.co.uk

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EFL Award Winners Announced

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EFL Award Winners Announced: The EFL has announced the winners of the Grounds Team of the Season award for 2018/19 in each of the three divisions.

The awards recognise the importance of the quality of pitches for professional football and acknowledge the clubs and their ground staff who consistently produce the best playing surfaces in the EFL.

In the Sky Bet Championship, Swansea City win the award for producing a perfect pitch at the Liberty Stadium this season. Aston Villa and Middlesbrough are both highly commended.

In Sky Bet League One, Bristol Rovers’ ground staff take top honours for the excellent surface at the Memorial Stadium. Doncaster Rovers, Sunderland and Wycombe Wanderers are highly commended.

The award for Grounds Team of the Season in Sky Bet League Two this year goes to Swindon Town, while the ground staff of Carlisle United and MK Dons are highly commended.

Championship

Winner – Swansea City

Highly Commended – Aston Villa

Highly Commended – Middlesbrough

League One

Winner – Bristol Rovers

Highly Commended – Doncaster Rovers

Highly Commended – Sunderland

Highly Commended – Wycombe Wanderers

League Two

Winner – Swindon Town

Highly Commended – Carlisle United

Highly Commended – MK Dons

The EFL’s Grounds Team of the Season Awards are determined initially using marks from referees and away managers for each Sky Bet EFL game and are then followed by detailed pitch inspections and a review of management operations.

These visits were carried out by Dr Stephen Baker, Head of Sports Surface Technology at the Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI).

Click here to read the original article

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New Residual Herbicide From Bayer

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New Residual Herbicide From Bayer: Bayer has brought a new residual pre-emergence herbicide to the UK market, adding another product to the amenity contractor’s armoury.

Lewis Blois, Bayer national account manager, says Valdor® Flex (MAPP:19033) contains a unique new formulation. “The pre-emergence herbicide contains two active ingredients, that prevent the emergence of a broad spectrum of weeds for up to four months, reducing the frequency of traditional herbicide applications.

New Residual Herbicide From Bayer

“The product provides excellent residual control for even the hardest to manage weeds on a wide range of surfaces, including open soil, gravel and industrial areas.”

Resistance management

Lewis explains that because of the combination of active ingredients, Valdor® Flex acts as a valuable tool for resistance management within the weed control sector.

“The herbicide provides good control of numerous weeds, while the two active ingredients, diflufenican and iodosulfuron-methyl-sodium, help to minimise the risk of resistance with two different modes of action.”

Flexible applications

“Valdor® Flex can be used as a stand-alone application on bare ground before weed emergence. But if weeds are present it can be mixed with glyphosate, which provides the initial knockdown, while Valdor® Flex will provide residual control preventing subsequent weeds emerging for up to four months.”

Lewis says the correct amount of product should be mixed to cover the given spray area for that day. However, he explains Valdor® Flex is stable in water for at least 24 hours, so if for some reason there is any spray solution left in the tank it can be used the following day.

“It’s easy to mix in a knapsack or tractor mounted sprayer with very little dust given off, providing improved operator safety,” he says.

“Valdor® Flex is also available in a range of pack sizes. The 10g sachets are the ideal dose to be mixed in a knapsack sprayer with 10 litres of water. However, for contractors requiring larger quantities, the 500g bottle may be more cost effective to use in a tractor mounted sprayer.

“We’re always working hard to bring new innovative formulations and sustainable solutions to the amenity sector, and the launch of this product will help contractors continue to manage weeds at a time when many products are being lost from the market,” concludes Lewis.

Alan Abel, from Complete Weed Control, put the herbicide to the test on a heavily weeded gravel site at an international airport.

“Valdor® Flex stood out for us due to the long-lasting residual control and its low risk of resistance. In practice these features impressed with great results.

“Herbicide resistance is an increasing issue for the amenity sector, so the fact that new products are coming to the market is certainly a positive, helping us to complete jobs efficiently,” says Alan.

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New Pitch Investment Pays Off

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New Pitch Investment Pays Off: For years the quality of the Memorial Stadium pitch was criticised by managers both home and away as it cut up badly.

Former Gas manager Darrell Clarke used to lambaste it at regular intervals.

Which makes today’s announcement that Bristol Rovers have been named Grounds Team of the Season in League One all the more significant.

At this point last season the club had already ripped up the turf at the Memorial Stadium to correct a problem with the incorrect sand laid under the grass and lay a new fibre pitch.

What the fibre does is reinforce the turf meaning it does not come up in clumps.

Clarke, who departed as manager at the Gas in December, revealed over the summer that groundsman Daryle Sullivan had even slept at the stadium during the summer to ensure the pitch developed perfectly.

Anyone who has visited to Mem this season will no doubt have noticed the vast improvement to the playing surface.

The awards recognise the importance of the quality of pitches for professional football and acknowledge the clubs and their ground staff who consistently produce the best playing surfaces in the EFL.

Bristol Rovers’ ground staff take top honours for the excellent surface at the Memorial Stadium in League One with Doncaster Rovers, Sunderland and Wycombe Wanderers highly commended.

In the Championship, Swansea City won the award for producing a perfect pitch at the Liberty Stadium this season. Aston Villa and Middlesbrough are both highly commended.

The award for Grounds Team of the Season in League Two this year goes to Swindon Town, while the ground staff of Carlisle United and MK Dons are highly commended.

The EFL’s Grounds Team of the Season Awards are determined initially using marks from referees and away managers for each Sky Bet EFL game and are then followed by detailed pitch inspections and a review of management operations.

These visits were carried out by Dr Stephen Baker, Head of Sports Surface Technology at the Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI).

Click here to read the original article

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GreenMech Chippers Deliver Reliability

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GreenMech Chippers Deliver Reliability: A fleet of GreenMech woodchippers have been fundamental in the successful delivery of large-scale utility arb contracts for South Wales Arborists. Running both tracked and road tow models, Director Stuart Michael and his arb teams are well-equipped to deal with all tree, shrub and woodland projects which ensure the safe management of the power networks.

As approved contractors for Western Power Distribution (WPD), SWA have over 10 years of experience in managing trees in close proximity to overhead lines, both low and high voltage. “Our chippers are the key tools in helping us to deliver the contracts, and the vast array of sites we attend mean we’re often working on a variety of different terrains” explains Stuart. “We’ve used a few different makes of woodchipper over the years but have had various reliability issues and found parts to be expensive so when we made the decision to look around, I got in touch with Julian Cullis of GreenMech.”

GreenMech Chippers Deliver Reliability

“We were immediately impressed with what the GreenMech machines offered and bought our first tracked machine from them roughly 8 years ago.” SWA now have a 9” ChipMaster 220 TMP for large, high-volume projects, two Arborist 150 road-tow machines used predominately on low-voltage street works and, the most recent additions to their fleet, two ArbTrak 150’s for off-road projects and those on challenging ground conditions. Stuart also specified his machines in red livery, the company’s corporate colours.

“These chippers have been brilliant, they’re efficient and chip a range of materials thoroughly and accurately. Though 99% of our workload is utility arb, we have the range of machines now to easily reach a variety of locations and handle material no matter the size.” Stuart is hoping to have fully converted his fleet over to GreenMech machines by the end of this year. “Since the introduction of the first GreenMech chipper all those years ago we’ve never really looked back. We get fantastic support from Julian and look forward to continuing to deliver our contracts, with the help of GreenMech, for many years to come.”

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