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New Verti-Drain for Selby Golf Club

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New Verti-Drain for Selby Golf Club: Course Manager at Selby Golf Club, Chris Goodall, says the arrival of their new Charterhouse Verti-Drain® 7416 in November 2019 couldn’t have come at a better time!

The heathland course is very sandy meaning it is playable all year round and, in turn, makes it one of the busiest clubs in Yorkshire. This level of traffic has seen the Verti-Drain® in high demand over the winter period, tackling compaction on some of the high footfall areas.

New Verti-Drain for Selby Golf Club

New Verti-Drain for Selby Golf Club

“We previously had two separate aerators – one of which was proving too heavy for our ageing tractors, and the other was smaller so only really suitable for work on the greens” explains Chris, who has been at the club for five years. “When the time came to replace them, we wanted a good all-rounder – capable of site wide aeration.” Having been impressed with the Verti-Drain® at a previous club, Chris was keen to go down the Charterhouse road this time and spoke with local dealer F G Adamson and Sons.

“The size of the 7416 model was a perfect fit for our requirements and fleet of tractors. It’s super easy to set up, quiet in operation and covers the ground at good speed. The timing of its delivery meant it was out straight away and every couple of weeks after that, relieving compaction on pathways, walkways and fairways which kept us free of any waterlogging over the very wet winter months.”

Chris purchased his Verti-Drain® with solid tines, and additional hollow tines for year-round flexibility. “In a regular year, we would equip the Verti-Drain® with pencil tines to aerate the greens through the summer then as we head towards the back end of the year we’d then look at hollow coring and using bigger tines on the fairways and other areas.”

The Verti-Drain® 7416 has a 1.6m working width and offers a 14″ maximum working depth. The range of solid and hollow tine options, together with its weight, makes it a popular choice for golf courses; but it’s robust nature also makes it ideal for penetration of hard and compacted soils on a range of sports surfaces.

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Bionema launches cold-tolerance products

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Bionema launches cold-tolerance products: After three years of field trials, UK-based biotechnology company Bionema has launched a new cold- tolerance nematode pest control product, which provides insect kill rate of up to 95%.

It is estimated that crop pests caused 470 billion USD worldwide annually. For example, annual European losses by western corn rootworm are the estimated at £1.5billion, while black vine weevil causes losses of up to £40m to the UK horticulture industry and £4 billion worldwide. According to a research report conducted by independent agricultural and environmental consultancy ADAS, UK estimated annual chafer grub control costs UK golf courses approximately £85m in lost income and damage repair and lost income by the 40% of UK racecourses affected by pest damage could amount to £605,000 per course.

Bionema launches cold-tolerance products

Bionema launches cold-tolerance products

Bionema’s new product – NemaTrident®CT (cold-tolerance) contains Heterorhabditis downesi and offers a highly effective chemical-free, low temperature solution to greenkeepers, sports turf managers, crop growers, plant producers and arboriculturists who are finding it difficult to control these pests in lower temperature soils. The product provides protection against a wide range of agricultural, horticultural and forestry pests – including vine weevil, pine weevil, chafer grubs, leatherjackets, cutworms and offers successful results when used in the late spring and autumn when soil temperatures can dip to as low as 5°C.

It is an also effective alternative to traditional chemical products, which have been withdrawn from the market, due to EU chemical pest control regulations.

The NemaTrident® tri-component range comprises different species of naturally occurring, beneficial entomopathogenic nematodes within the Heterorhabditis and Steinernema genera.

The main components comprising the NemaTrident® solution are:

  1. Selected nematode species,
  2. A biocompatible wetting agent plus
  3. Training and advice

Dr Minshad Ansari, founder and CEO of Bionema – and a leading expert in biocontrol said “Three-year product trials in the horticultural, sport turf, forestry and arboriculture sectors included different nematode species. The final product offers a unique solution that provides 20-30% higher efficacy than existing products in the market – and delivers up to 95% kill rate”.

NemaTrident® is available to professional users in the UK and EU through dedicated distributors including Rigby Taylor, Dejex Horticulture, Farmyard, Medinbio and Progreen.

Peter Corbett, Business Development Manager of Rigby Taylor, said: “We are delighted to add Bionema’s NemaTrident Cold-Tolerant solutions to our portfolio. Our customers have been crying out for a solution to treat insect problems when they begin to appear in early spring and late autumn.”

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Well-Being Wednesday

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Well-Being Wednesday: Activity and exercise

Activity and exercise are essential in maintaining good mental health. Being active not only gives you a sense of achievement, but it boosts the chemicals in your brain that help put you in a good mood. Exercising can help eliminate low mood, anxiety, stress and feeling tired and lazy. It is also linked to living a longer life.

Well-Being Wednesday

Well-Being Wednesday

You don’t need to run a marathon or play 90 minutes of football; a short walk or some another gentle activity might do the trick.

Take a look at our Exercise and sport section, or go to our Events calendar, for ideas and information on what is going on in your area.

Do something you enjoy

Try to make time for doing the fun things you enjoy. If you like going for a walk, painting or a specific TV show, try to set aside time to enjoy yourself. If we don’t spend any time doing things we enjoy, we can become irritable and unhappy.

Whether you need help to get out and about or not take a look at our Things To Do section, or go to our Events calendar, for ideas and information on what is going on in your area.

Connect with others and be sociable

Make an effort to maintain good relationships and talk to people whenever you get the chance. Having friends is important not just for your self-esteem, but also for providing support when you’re not feeling too great. Research has found that talking to others for just ten minutes can improve memory and test scores!

Whether or not you find going out and meeting people difficult you can have a look at our Social Activities pages or our Events calendar for inspiration.

Do things for others

Helping others isn’t just good for the people you’re helping; it’s good for you too. Helping someone can help with your self-esteem and make you feel good about your place in the world. Feeling as though you’re part of a community is a really important part of your mental health. You could try volunteering for a local charity, or just being neighbourly.

Ask for help

One of the most important ways to keep yourself mentally healthy is to recognise when you’re not feeling good, and to know when to ask for help. There’s no shame in asking someone for support if you’re feeling low or stressed. Everyone goes through patches where they don’t feel as good as they should. You can try speaking to your friends or family, or if you think your mental health is getting on top of you then you can speak to your GP.

Other information and advice

Please see the Other information and Advice page for organisations and services that support people with experience of mental health issues.

Thanks to The Sleep Foundation for providing the tips on how to sleep well, and to overcome problems with sleeping.

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Improvements edge Beaconsfield into England’s Top 100

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Improvements edge Beaconsfield into England’s Top 100: Over 100 years old, Beaconsfield Golf Club is a private members club boasting an 18-hole, parkland and tree lined course in south Buckinghamshire.

At 680 members, the club is in the enviable position of being full and only accepting applications now from lady and junior golfers.

Improvements edge Beaconsfield into England’s Top 100

Improvements edge Beaconsfield into England’s Top 100

It all began in 1913 when local landowner, Colonel Du Pre, set out to fulfil his dream of establishing a prestigious eighteen hole golf course and clubhouse on his Wilton Estate. He asked famous golf course architect H.S. (Harry) Colt to design it. Colt was referred to as “the best golf architect of all time” and by 1913 he had already designed some twenty courses, including The Eden at St Andrews. He went on to design over three hundred other courses in some sixteen countries including Wentworth, Moor Park and the New Sunningdale course.

Amazingly the club has its own railway station! This came as a result of negotiations between the Colonel and those railway companies building the London to Birmingham railway. The line went through Beaconsfield, cutting right through the Wilton Park estate, so the Colonel orchestrated a covenant whereby they were required to build a “Halt” adjacent to “a Golf House” that he had in mind to build. That Halt (now “Seer Green and Jordans” station) was duly built and opened in 1915, just one year after the “Golf House” and the new course had been opened!

The club has boasted some star members over the years, including world number one Luke Donald. Luke was Club Champion while still a junior member of the Club and went on to win numerous national and international tournaments. He went to the top of the world rankings in May 2011 after winning the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. In 2012 he became the first player ever, affiliated to both the US and European tours, to head the money list for the year on both tours.

Course Manager, Stuart Langhorn, relishes the challenge of improving the 222 acres of land in which the course sits, boasting a solid number of traditional English trees including oak, beech, ash and birch. He says that people are allowed to donate trees but he’s very strict about maintaining that English heritage!

Originally from Cumbria, Stuart took full advantage of an opportunity to work much further south at the All England Club, Wimbledon, as an intern for 6 months in 1999. He was able to put into practice some of the foundations of ground care and also enjoy the venue, being on court to watch Pete Sampras win.

He then spent six years at Woburn as a fulltime machine operator, covering seven European tour events before moving on to Burhill Golf & Leisure as Deputy Course Manager for Alwickbury Park in Harpenden. After seven years and a promotion to Course Manager, Stuart was ready for the new challenge of Beaconsfield in 2013.

Stuart says “The situation at Beaconsfield is rather unique with a 4-year waiting list and full membership. I’m not surprised because the course is well laid out, it’s traditional and also family oriented. We’re always looking at ways to further improve the course and surrounding grounds, embracing new techniques and technology where possible.”

Improvements edge Beaconsfield into England’s Top 100

Improvements edge Beaconsfield into England’s Top 100

“One success story on that front has been the purchase of a Ventrac tractor in the last couple of years. I first saw the Ventrac at BTME and was immediately drawn to investigate further because it was so different to any other machine I’d ever used.”

“We have about six areas on the course that we’ve always cut with fly mowers and strimmers because they are really sloping, uneven and rough! I wanted to see how the Ventrac would handle those areas and whether it could give us any time saving. In reality we were blown away during the demonstration at how easily and efficiently the machine handled the work.”

“It would have been an easy decision for me to bring the machine into Beaconsfield on that basis alone but I had to make more of a business case in addition to the huge time saving. That came with the sheer versatility of the Ventrac because of all the other attachments available. It could not only replace several other machines we were using but could be used throughout the winter too for a whole range of groundcare needs from drainage to stump grinding.”

“It was still a surprise when we had our own machine on site in May 2018 to see exactly what it could do for us. It’s taken literally 75% of the work away from those rough areas in one go! The guys who use the machine are genuinely excited about what it can deliver and the guys who don’t use it are very happy that it’s cut down on the many afternoons they’ve spent fly mowing in these areas.”

“The Ventrac has replaced our first-cut mowers as well as our semi-mowers. When we stop cutting the grass, we take the contour deck off and put the tough cut on and get into the woodland. Once we clear it out we need to maintain it and the tough cut deck is ideal. It just goes in and eats everything up!”

“When the woodland work is done we fit the trencher attachment and it goes straight out draining fairways. 12 months a year work!”

“On top of that, we have so much more space in our sheds now because we just have the one machine with its attachments rather than a whole load of machines. We’ve also saved money on buying or hiring in other machines we previously needed for our woodland areas and for drainage.”

Improvements edge Beaconsfield into England’s Top 100

Improvements edge Beaconsfield into England’s Top 100

“It’s still surprising us too. We keep testing it on steeper or more difficult areas thinking it’s going to slip up, but it never does! It’s only limited by the confidence of the team – and its official limits of course!”

“Members have noticed a huge difference because we’re now taking areas that were unmaintained – long, deep and rough – and we’re taking them down to one-inch grass. There isn’t a person in the club who isn’t happy!”

“The Ventrac has moved the whole course from 9 out of 10 to 10 out of 10, and we’ve moved into the Top 100 Golf Courses in England. This is partly because of what it can do and partly because the guys have more time to focus on keeping the rest of the course better maintained. They are cutting greens, tees, dry cut tees, fairways and approaches more and also being able to do more attention-to-detail work.”

“Rupert Price at Priceturfcare was really helpful when we were considering the machine and we’ve been delighted with the service we’ve had from the dealer, RT Machinery. Tom Bailey and the team there were fantastic through the demo and purchase and then the backup has been superb. Whenever we’ve needed parts or information it’s always been with us that day or the day after.”

“We had an issue with the machine coming into the Bank Holiday weekend last August and they even delivered on that, picking it up on Friday and returning it on the Tuesday, all fixed. It’s great dealing with a company that are not trying to sell all the time.”

“Having said that, we are already planning which attachments we want to get next for the Ventrac – certainly the blower and large brush, which will add to the versatility we have. We know that other owners have used their brush for de-mossing car parks, clearing pine cones, shifting snow and more.”

“The whole machine just absolutely blows everything away in its market. There’s nothing else like it!”

For anyone interested in exploring what the Ventrac can do, please contact RT Machinery on 01844 299037 or visit the website www.rtmachinery.co.uk.

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The growing role of PGR’s

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The growing role of PGR’s: Plant Growth Regulators (PGR’s) are a longstanding programme component for those maintaining all types of amenity grassland and managed amenity turf.

Clipless NT® from Headland Amenity’s is a Trinexapac-ethyl PGR, which is typically applied from mid-April on outfield or course turf and mid-late May on fine turf. Alex Hawkes, Headland’s Sports Turf Manager explores how PGR’s work and how many are now finding additional benefits of their use.

The growing role of PGR’s

The growing role of PGR’s

PGR’s effectively block the production of gibberellic acid – the plant hormone responsible for cell elongation. By lowering levels of the hormone within the plant leaf, PGR’s reduce cell elongation and vertical growth and, instead, redirect the energy within the plant to generate enhanced root development and lateral growth. In its simplest capacity, it can contribute towards a sward that requires less frequent mowing, saving manpower and associated machinery costs. They can be particularly useful for reducing mowing in difficult or dangerous areas such as steep banks.

Because growth is redirected from vertical to horizontal, PGR’s are often employed by greenkeepers and groundsmen alike to increase the density of a given area. Moreover, they have also been shown to optimise the conditions for seeding operations – particularly those in or near competitive swards. With the regulated growth and lower energy consumption of the existing plant, nutrition from the soil profile is optimised for germination and establishment of the new seedling.

At Trent College in Nottingham, Head of Gardens and Grounds Peter Flewitt trialled Clipless NT® in this capacity, on the schools four cricket squares. “In our environment, we are able to renovate the squares much earlier in the growing season than perhaps other local clubs or the county grounds would. We applied Clipless NT® at the end of July, a week before we started our renovations and we nicknamed this area our ‘old grass’. We were interested to see if by regulating the growth here, the new seed sown in the vicinity would germinate better due to lower competition – and it worked well.”

Peter continues, “We left the ‘new grass’ to grow through and the difference in their comparative growth speeds was evident – particularly when we mowed for the first time that it was just this new grass being cut. With the Clipless NT®, used in conjunction with H-Cote™ (slow-release fertiliser) we were able to then manage and sustain the healthy, dense sward we achieved in our renovations through the autumn and winter period when our workload shifts focus onto our winter sports areas. With the wet winter we had, the Clipless NT® application kept growth in check meaning we didn’t have to take any mowing equipment out onto the soft ground at any stage.”

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