Rigby Taylor Appoint Peter Robin

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Rigby Taylor Appoint Peter Robin: Rigby Taylor has expanded its product management team of industry product specialists with the appointment of Peter Robin as UK Irrigation Product Manager.

Peter will spearhead the company’s expansion into the irrigation market as the UK distributor of Rain Bird’s golf, sports pitch and landscape products.

Rigby Taylor Appoint Peter Robin

Peter, a New Zealander by birth, has a Bachelor of Horticultural Science degree and over 20 years’ experience across a wide range of irrigation market sectors and installations, 10 years of which have been spent in the UK.

Peter lives in York but has a nationwide brief and can be contacted by email (peter.robin@rigbytaylor.com) or by ‘phone on 07741 665679.

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Sherriff’s Marathon Tackles Drought

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Sherriff’s Marathon Tackles Drought: With prolonged heat and drought conditions challenging turf managers up and down the country in 2018, Tim Attwood, sports field groundsman at Beaudesert Park School in Minchinhampton, Stroud, believes that his use of Sherriff Amenity’s Marathon fertilisers have helped his turf to endure this testing period.

Beaudesert Park stands in beautiful grounds high up in the Cotswolds, commanding magnificent views over the surrounding countryside. Founded in 1908 at Henley in Arden, Warwickshire, the school moved to its present site in 1918 and has become a thriving co-ed day, weekly and flexi boarding school for 450 boys and girls aged 3 – 13.

Sherriff's Marathon Tackles Drought

The school has excellent facilities which includes 15 acres of beautiful playing fields. Football is the main focus at the start of the spring term which is shortly followed by hockey. Rugby is the major sport in the autumn term and as you would expect, cricket is prominent in the summer.

Tim is the man charged with maintaining all of the sports pitches and after working with Sherriff Amenity for 15 years, he believes that his use of Marathon fertilisers is a tried and tested method which guarantees results.

“I’ve used Marathon fertilisers on sites where I have worked before and they have just always worked. They are also semi-organic which ticks a nice big box for me,” he says.

As Tim remarks, the range of Marathon fertilisers feature a patented organic complex base that provides the extended release characteristics needed to give gentle root development without producing excessive top growth. The slow release mechanism avoids soft growth that is more susceptible to disease attack whilst the high potassium content helps to harden turf against fungal pathogens and low temperature stress. The analysis has been further amended with ingredients to supply the correct balance of nutrients required by the turf.

With the analyses of each product in the range being geared to a specific growth stage or season, Tim incorporates three particular Marathon fertilisers into a year round maintenance programme.

Applying the product by using a spreader behind a compact tractor and at rate of 25g/m2, Tim firstly uses the Marathon Sport Spring 16.4.8 typically at the end of March. In the midst of a warm July he will then apply Marathon Sport Summer 10.0.15 followed by the Autumn mixture 7.0.21 in October.

“This programme keeps the pitches ticking over nicely throughout the year,” he says. “It greens up nicely, the sward seems to thicken and it lasts for a good long time. Even throughout this summer, which has been incredibly challenging with the weather, my sports field has maintained its health and colour. From what I’ve seen, there are a lot of sports fields round here which haven’t and I think the Marathon Sport products have gone a long way in achieving that.”

Sherriff Amenity’s extensive range of quality products are also perfectly complimented by the first class customer service provided by the company’s amenity specialists. Renowned for their technical knowledge, which is consistently enriched through industry leading training programmes, Sherriff’s amenity specialists are always on hand to ensure that customers are always getting the best results from their turf.

“I’ve known David Evans (amenity specialist for Wiltshire and South Wales) for a long time and I know that he would never push any products my way which are not appropriate for what I want to achieve. He genuinely wants the best for my turf and he’s always there for help, recommendations and support. For me, that is a big factor in choosing to work with Sherriff Amenity.”

For further information, please contact Sherriff Amenity on 01638 721 888 or visit www.sherriffamenity.com

For more news and insightful views, you can follow Sherriff Amenity on Twitter @SherriffAmenity

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SCH Supplies Entrepreneur

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SCH Supplies Entrepreneur: In 1987, entrepreneur Andrew Rodwell noticed a gap in the market when he became frustrated at the lack of suitable lawn care attachments to fit to his garden tractor.  With the help and encouragement of Malcolm Vandenburgh at Wests Engineering Ltd, the pair set about designing and manufacturing a range of grass care machinery. Before long, SCH (Supplies) Ltd was created and began selling machinery to the public from their workshop in Holbrook, Suffolk. Malcolm later continued with his core business at Wests.

To market and grow the company, SCH attended many garden machinery shows cross the country, talking to potential customers and machinery dealers, who sell products on behalf of SCH. As of 2019, SCH have over 800 machinery dealers across the UK and Europe, who drive the majority of SCH’s sales.

SCH Supplies Entrepreneur

Andrew has always encouraged his staff for input on the companies’ products, which has been an essential driving factor to their profile of over 250 machines, ranging from grass care and flail mowers to trailers and leaf collectors. There is a wide range of experience at SCH, as their 25 employees design, manufacture and deliver their products themselves.

After reaching the grand age of 80 last December, Andrew has decided to hand the reigns over to two of his long term employees, Ian Holder and John Free, as he takes a well-earned retirement. He’s happy to be leaving the thriving company with an annual turnover in excess of £1.5 million.

Ian and John have been with SCH for 14 years each, and will be adapting their previous roles as the works manager and accountant to run and oversee the company. Andrew is sure they will continue his entrepreneurial spirit, as new and innovative products will be added to the SCH range in the coming years. They are fortunate enough to have an enthusiastic and dedicated team to support them, including Alan Lawrence, who has helped smooth the transition by taking over many responsibilities of the works manager.

SCH produce over 50,000 copies of their free 80 page brochure, which contains their most popular products. Many of these have been inspired by the unique and innovative requests by customers over the past 33 years. If you have any ideas that you would like to see manufactured, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01473 328272, email sales@schsupplies.co.uk, or visit our website to find out more www.schsupplies.co.uk

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GKB Ticks Boxes For Artificial Turf

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GKB Ticks Boxes For Artificial Turf: Launching his dedicated artificial sports turf maintenance business this month, Sports and Courts Maintenance Ltd, Jon Lawson was looking for something that would decompact and assist in the deep cleaning and rejuvenating of artificial sports turf and was impressed with the robustness of GKB’s Renovator and the size of the double heads of the Rotobrush.

Owner and Managing Director at Sports and Courts Line Marking Ltd, Jon Lawson explains, “GKB is known for reliability and from Tom’s demo, I was so impressed with the rotary brush. I needed something that was going to do the job and that was robust and reliable. We have a lot of tennis clubs complain that they’ve got very compacted baselines and the Renovator and Rotobrush tick all the boxes. For us it was the answer to going forwards with the new business, offering this additional service on top of the deep cleans and everything else we already do”.

GKB Ticks Boxes For Artificial Turf

On the GKB Renovator’s first job rejuvenating a bespoke short pile sand filled artificial sports turf it far exceeded expectation for Jon, he adds, “We feel it increased the amount of contaminated sand infill removed by 15 – 20% working in conjunction with our existing system. It also reduced the overall job by one day which means the client gets the sports surface back in to use a day early. This has given me complete reassurance it was worth the investment, outstanding!”

The GKB Renovator’s five rotating brushes form the foundation of the machine and because the brushes interlock into each other, you will not miss a single inch when you are operating on your pitch. Whilst the GKB Rotobrush enables you to brush deeper and more effectively as the rotating brush disc is provided with extra rigid bristles which are pressed into the synthetic turf. Where the functioning of normal brushing and cleaning stops, the Rotobrush will continue.

GKB Ticks Boxes For Artificial Turf

For more on GKB Machines and their reliable and robust range of machinery for natural, hybrid and synthetic turf, please visit www.gkbmachines.com or contact Tom Shinkins on 07495 883617.

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Campey’s New Electric Mower

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Campey’s New Electric Mower: Campey Turf Care Systems is giving turf professionals a green solution to mowing with the introduction of the Fleischmann Electric 5 Deck mower.

The mower has five 2.20 metre cutting decks with six spindles per deck, giving a 10-metre overall cutting width. The mower features a braked steering rear axle and the two-point pivoting front mount hitch provides high maneuverability, enabling cutting speeds up to 20kph to be achieved.

Campey's New Electric Mower

Each blade on the five cutting decks is powered by a low maintenance electric motor, leaving behind traditional gearboxes and PTO shafts and eliminating the risk of oil leaks. The six high tip speed blades in each deck give more cuts per metre and offer excellent clipping dispersal.

The modern generator used to power the mower is very efficient and lowers all the factors you’d want less of. That’s low PTO requirements, low engine revs and lower noise output for quiet operation.

The mechanics of the operation are enhanced further by the five low ground pressure castor wheels. Each deck has five wheels which are expertly designed to follow contours and iron out bumps in the surface without leaving any marks. The wheels are also used to easily set the height of cut with all other operations controlled from the in-cab control box.

The 25 castor wheels are joined at the back of the machine by two steerable braked tyres on the rear axle. These tyres improve the turning circle and prevent any marks being made and also make the machine safer when travelling at high speed on the road.

Campey's New Electric Mower

Transporting the mower is simple with hydraulic folding wings reducing the width of the machine to a 3-metre transport width. The process of folding has been meticulously tested to ensure that no marking or scuffing occurs during the conversion from working to transporting.

For more information, visit: www.campeyturfcare.com

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