Award For Rotherham Grounds Team

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Award For Rotherham Grounds Team: More than any footballer could ever hope to Rotherham United head groundsman Dave Fellowes covers every blade of grass, suggesting he can clock up 100 miles a week on the pitch at AESSEAL New York Stadium.

Up and down, across and back, up and down, across and back.

Dave Fellowes reckons he can clock up 100 miles a week on the pitch at AESSEAL New York Stadium as head groundsman of Rotherham United.

“There’s no such thing as an average week,” he says. “Everything changes depending on what’s going on at the stadium or up at the training ground. In the summer we can be cutting the grass anything up to eight times a week.”

Such dedication has earned him and his team yet another prestigious honour. Fellowes, New York assistant Mykel Parkin and Roundwood man with the mower Dave Burton have been named the Institute of Groundsmanship’s Grounds Team of the Year.

“It’s down to hard work. It’s a great joint effort,” Fellowes says. “I wouldn’t ask any of the lads to do a job I wouldn’t do. It’s not one individual.

“It’s just old-fashioned hard work, looking at the elements and reacting in the right way to that with the tools that you have.”

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IOG’s Training & Education Guide

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IOG’s Training & Education Guide: The new IOG Prospectus is the definitive guide to the Institute of Groundsmanship’s  Training and Education, detailing the many training courses and qualifications available from the institute. The 44-page booklet outlines the qualifications, training courses and advisory services available to help support individual career development and future opportunities.

Also included is an ‘at-a-glance’ career roadmap showing how all the different options dovetail to create progression pathways.

IOG's Training & Education Guide

In addition, there is an explanation of the IOG’s Pitch Grading Framework – guidelines that match pitch quality standards with the skills required to maintain them, at every level from volunteer grassroots playing surfaces needing introductory certification through to foundation degrees for professionals at elite stadia.

The Prospectus offers something for everyone; a blended learning system that allows access to IOG courses in the workplace, the classroom or online, to enable everyone to enhance their skillset and knowledge.

A host of IOG training courses are outlined, for winter pitches, cricket, bowls, racecourses, warm season grasses, reinforced pitches and artificial surfaces, as well as ‘general’ and bespoke courses. The qualifications offered by the IOG include:

  • Technical Awards, Certificates and Diplomas in turf surface maintenance;
  • Certificate in sustainable turf management;
  • Professional Certificate and Diploma in turf surface management;
  • Professional Certificate in turf surface consulting; and
  • Supervisor Management Level 3.

Commenting on the launch of the IOG Prospectus, chief executive Geoff Webb said: “The IOG is committed to encouraging continual skills development and is passionate about supporting those wanting to learn how to improve playing surfaces at every level of the sporting spectrum.

“Thousands of grounds people train with us each year, as well as the many who undertake IOG qualifications, and the IOG Prospectus now provides an easy-reference guide for everyone involved.”

A PDF copy of the IOG Prospectus can viewed in the Learning area of the IOG website (www.iog.org/learning) or via the link https://www.iog.org/sites/default/files/documents/pages/iog_learning_prospectus_2018_1.pdf and printed copies are available from the IOG by calling 01908 312511 or via email: Learning@iog.org

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Germinal To Showcase ForeFront At BTME

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Germinal To Showcase ForeFront At BTME: Germinal will be heading to the BIGGA Turf Management Exhibition (BTME) in Harrogate from 22nd to 24th January 2019, where it will be showcasing its ForeFront Greens grass seed mixture.

Containing a unique blend of three top-ranking bentgrass varieties, ForeFront Greens delivers the highest levels of disease and stress resistance.  It is rated for cutting heights down to 3mm and, with excellent shoot density, fineness of leaf and unrivalled summer and winter greenness, is the mixture for better golf greens.

Germinal To Showcase ForeFront At BTME

ForeFront Greens contains 35% Aber®Regal (browntop bent), 35% Aber®Royal (browntop bent) and 30% 007 DSB (creeping bent).

AberRegal and AberRoyal were both bred at IBERS (the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences in Aberystwyth) from parent material originally sourced in the UK.  As well as superb disease resistance they also offer excellent shoot density, good fineness of leaf and unrivalled winter and summer greenness.

007 DSB was bred in the US using 24 parent plants to produce a single cultivar with a prostrate growth habit, high shoot density and good wear tolerance in a wide range of climatic conditions.  007 DSB has won plaudits wherever it has been used including at Ryder Cup and US Open courses and at the PGA Masters at Wentworth.  Unlike older creeping bent varieties, 007 DSB has a lower requirement for water and nutrients thereby making it ideal for inclusion in a low input seed mixture.

The recommended sowing rate for Forefront Greens is 8 to 12g/m2 (80 to 120kgs/ha).  The recommended overseeding rate is 5 to 8g/m2 (50 to 80kgs/ha).

To discuss how ForeFront Greens could benefit your course visit Germinal on Stand 257 in  the Red Zone at BTME.  Alternatively go to www.germinalamenity.com

For more information visit www.germinalamenity.com

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An Update From Scott MacCallum

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An Update From Scott MacCallum: It’s now a month since many of us converged on Birmingham for Saltex, met with friends and colleagues and left promising to keep in more regular touch. A regular touch which in many cases will be repeated for the next time at the same time and place next year!

It is a truism that life gets in the way of an awful lot – friendships being among the more unfortunate casualties so while an annual meet up at Saltex may be a little too long a gap, at least it happens.

An Update From Scott MacCallum

Of course, business was the reason we were at the NEC and the number of follow-ups from the many leads taken at the Show will have already been completed thus proving the benefit of face to face encounters.

As we head into December I know that it is a particularly busy time for all groundsmen and greenkeepers. Winter programmes at golf club and cricket grounds will be well underway and while the fact that, with golf in particular, tree management work can be unseen by the members leading to jokes about overused dartboards, much of the success of the work carried out in the out of season periods is responsible for a less stressful time next spring and summer.

For those working in football and rugby the festive period is particularly action packed with many games played in weather that it particularly unsuited to recovery or remedial work. It’s not just the players who look at Christmas with a feeling of dread!

What I would say is that whatever you are working on at the moment – Good fortune!

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Pellenc Introduced At SRUC Oatridge

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Pellenc Introduced At SRUC Oatridge: Students studying landscaping, horticulture and agricultural engineering at the unique SRUC Oatridge campus in West Lothian near Edinburgh recently participated in an event which gave them the opportunity to discover more about Pellenc’s innovative battery technology and gain some hands on experience with a wide range of equipment.

SRUC College is a bespoke land based industries institution based throughout Scotland which offers a number of courses at all levels from college and university level study, through to postgraduate, consultancy and research opportunities. Many of the courses at the Oatridge campus relate to the ways in which we make use of the land and natural resources around us – from agriculture and horticulture to veterinary nursing and equestrianism, and a huge variety of exciting and relevant land based topics in between.

Pellenc Introduced At SRUC Oatridge

The College has a philosophy of continuously exploring the innovative science that supports these land-based industries, and the way they interact with and support the environment around them. It is for this reason that Thomas Meenagh, a horticulture lecturer at Oatridge, decided that it would be a good idea for the students to become familiar with the increasingly popular battery powered machinery.

“I think that in every walk of society it is becoming common knowledge that we should be more environmentally friendly and be producing less CO2 and greenhouse gasses. An awful lot of hand held powered equipment used in land based industries comes with two-stroke engines which burn off fuel and oil, and so it is good to see the likes of landscaping and horticulture industries moving towards battery powered machinery.

“As a teaching institution we should be ahead of the game; we should be at the forefront of this kind of development – so that is why I wanted to organise some kind of event which could introduce the students to this equipment.”

Having being in the market to buy some battery powered equipment, Thomas’ research led him to Pellenc, which is exclusively distributed in the UK by Etesia. He arranged for four sessions to take place over two days in which Etesia representatives firstly delivered a theory based session which offered a greater insight into the Pellenc technology, followed by a practical demonstration. The students were then invited to trial the equipment for themselves.

“The students were delighted because they got to use the equipment to cut hedges, cut grass, use brush cutters and much more. The feedback was excellent and they were very impressed with the equipment. They commented on it being really light – a lot lighter than equipment they had been exposed to in the past. They also remarked on the equipment having very low vibration, being very quiet and extremely efficient.”

Light, odourless, relatively noise-free, with no starting problems and no refilling the fuel tank – it’s no wonder more and more people are turning to the innovative technology of Pellenc. In the last five years, Pellenc has gained market recognition by offering a unique range of ‘zero emission’ battery-powered handheld tools, thanks to the development of Lithium-ion ultra-high performance batteries. This technology, which is exclusive to Pellenc, guarantees non-polluting, odourless operation with quick start-up and long lasting battery life.

In reflecting on a successful event, Thomas believes that it was essential that the students got a first glimpse of the products that they could very well be using on a regular basis in the future.

“I would anticipate that in five years from now this kind of equipment will be the norm throughout the industry. By the time the students graduate and get jobs no doubt the two stroke fuel equipment will become less and less common and the battery powered equipment will be more dominant in the workplace.”

“This event has given them experience of using this type of equipment, of being able to understand how it works, how to hold it and use it properly. Hopefully they will have learned something and benefitted from this demonstration. Even in the job interview process there is every chance that they will be asked about their experience with this type of equipment so no doubt this event has been a great first step and I’d certainly look at hosting more of this type of event in the future.”

For further information, please contact Etesia UK on 01295 680120 or visit www.pellencuk.com

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