John Deere Dealership Changes

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John Deere Dealership Changes: John Deere dealer Winchester Garden Machinery Ltd has decided to relinquish its professional golf & turf business at the end of October 2018, while retaining Deere’s full homeowner equipment franchise. Neighbouring dealers Farol Ltd and Hunt Forest Group will share WGM’s existing professional sales area of responsibility, with Farol’s Midhurst outlet covering West Sussex and Surrey and Hunt Forest Group at Chilbolton taking on Hampshire.

Winchester Garden Machinery has been supplying and maintaining garden and commercial grass care machinery since 1969. It will continue to trade as a main John Deere homeowner dealer, specialising in walk-behind mowers and lawn tractors, from its three domestic machinery sales locations at Winchester and Liss in Hampshire and Sunningdale in Surrey. The business also includes a Forest & Arb Sales division, which was introduced in the early 2000s.

John Deere Dealership Changes

“After over 20 years of supplying and supporting the professional golf & turf sector, Winchester Garden Machinery Ltd has taken the decision to relinquish the franchise for this side of John Deere’s business,” says WGM dealer principal Andrew Hoskings, the company’s owner and co-founder with industry stalwart Robin Nettle, who sadly died of cancer earlier this year. “This decision has not been taken lightly, and with the growth in other sectors of our business – domestic, forestry and commercial – we will continue to be strong trading partners with John Deere on homeowner equipment.

“We will continue to support John Deere’s professional machinery with warranty within the valid dates and undertake service work as required. Winchester Garden machinery is very proud of its association with John Deere and of our reputation as one of the UK’s largest specialist dealers of lawn and garden machinery, and we look forward to the future with confidence.”

Farol will now manage a total of six John Deere agricultural and turf dealerships from the Midlands down through London to the south coast of England.

“Being awarded the new area of responsibility for John Deere’s golf and turf product range in West Sussex is an incredibly exciting prospect for Farol Midhurst,” says managing director Matthew Vellacott. “We will look to continue and build on the high standards of service established by Winchester Garden Machinery, and aim to grow the business with the additional benefits of resources and specialisms that come from being part of a larger group.

“Since Farol’s debut in the professional golf and turf machinery business eight years ago, we have seen exceptional business and market share growth. This now contributes over £20 million to the group’s turnover, which makes Farol one of the largest professional groundscare machinery dealerships in the UK.

“We believe that our industry leading machine technology and aftersales departments have been key to this success, and we now look forward to demonstrating this support to our new customers in the south of the country. This latest addition to the group will undoubtedly take our golf and turf business from strength to strength.”

R Hunt Ltd and New Forest Farm Machinery Ltd recently signed an agreement to merge their two businesses under the new name Hunt Forest Group from January 1, 2019. R Hunt has been a John Deere agricultural equipment dealer since 1971 and currently runs four outlets covering Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire, Surrey and the Isle of Wight. New Forest Farm Machinery trades from two outlets in Hampshire and Somerset and has been a John Deere agricultural dealer since 1979, and a professional turf dealer since 1986.

“This new area of responsibility sees our business expand its professional turf coverage and capability into Winchester and East Hampshire by adding the John Deere turf franchise to our existing Chilbolton facility,” says Hunt Forest Group managing director Tim Hunt. “We will be providing full sales, service and parts support for all John Deere professional turf products from Chilbolton, alongside our other outlets at Blashford, Sparkford, Tilshead and Isle of Wight, from November 2018.

“Following the recent news regarding the creation of Hunt Forest Group, we are able to quickly leverage the experience and staff within our new organisation. We are pleased to say we have immediate coverage for the new professional turf area of responsibility in Hampshire, with knowledgeable staff who will already be very familiar to many customers. We are very excited about the opportunity this brings and look forward to our customers and Hunt Forest Group growing together.”

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

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Open 2020 Prep Starts With Toro

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Open 2020 Prep Starts With Toro: The Open Championship is returning to Royal St George’s Golf Club in 2020, and the south coast club has chosen Toro irrigation to ensure the famous old course is looking its best when the world’s top golfers arrive in under two years’ time. 

The simple rationale which pushed course manager, Paul Larson, into lobbying for a Toro irrigation system, when the club made the decision to replace the existing 20-year-old one, was accuracy he says: “I want to irrigate in millimetres and not in minutes.”

Open 2020 Prep Starts With Toro

Now in place and guaranteeing the kind of accuracy Paul was after is Toro’s Lynx GDC system from Reesink Turfcare, an official Toro UK distributor. He says: “In fairness, the alternative system we looked at did offer the type of accuracy I was looking for, but while I could achieve three millimetres of water on a specific part of the course with one click of a button on the Toro system, the other system required some calculations and seemingly two or three clicks.”

Complete with pump and weather station integration and installed with a course map and Toro’s round-the-clock support in their handheld and NSN apps, the club’s adoption of the Toro system might not have been the case had Paul not given Rob Jackson, irrigation field sales manager at Reesink, the chance of a trial on a small patch of the golf course.

“I told Rob that I’d more than likely stay with the original system provider but that I was happy to learn of anything new as I like to be open-minded. And I’m glad I did. What I found was that Toro was easier, better and more suited to our course. I’ve had full confidence in the company and the system ever since. Everything has been first class,” revealed Paul.

“We have Infinity sprinklers on the greens, surrounds, approaches and fairways, which give us 360 degree spread, and we can control every head on every sprinkler individually. This morning I have had someone out taking moisture levels everywhere on the course and, for example, if we find a reading of 24 percent at the back of a green and a reading of 18 percent at the front we can set the sprinklers to level it out. My goal is round 20 percent,” said Paul who added that the tees have the FLEX B series, with main nozzle multi-trajectory adaptors. “Everything is just so easy to adjust; we are currently tweaking everything so that it will do exactly what we want.”

Paul continues: “The user friendliness means that I am able to sit with my tablet and control the system remotely, safe in the knowledge that we are irrigating the areas that require it and not wasting water by irrigating the rough or tee banks which was happening with the previous system.”

One area of the course which is benefiting greatly from the new system is the pathways, which now have over 1000 Toro 590G sprinklers with Precision Rotating Nozzles (PRN’s).

“Our paths were in poor shape,” says Paul. “We kept turfing them but it just didn’t last, so now we seed with a fairway fescue, something we can do because with the dedicated sprinklers we can keep them irrigated. It’s too dry down here for the paths to survive without it.”

Installation expert, Ocmis, was able to use most of the original pipework, just replacing all the joints and heads, with only a small amount of new pipework so disruption was minimised.

“The work was carried out over the winter and finished by early spring and by closing a hole at a time there wasn’t much disruption to the golf,” said Paul, who is looking forward to preparing the course for what is always a spectacular Open at Royal St George’s.

Club secretary, Tim Checketts, was part of the panel which had put in place a rigorous tendering process designed to ensure the club would identify the best new irrigation system for them.

“At the end of the process Royal St George’s Golf Club was quite clear that Toro’s irrigation system offered us the significant uplift in capability we had been looking for. We felt that Toro gave us the ability to use less water and target it precisely where we wanted it to go and in doing so the new system would support our strategy to encourage the growth of the finer fescue grasses while reducing the percentage of broadleaf grasses on the course.

“Ocmis was chosen as our preferred contractor recognising its track record in delivering major projects to cost and on time and its reputation for tidy and professional work. The company deserves great credit for completing this project despite the considerable challenges posed by the 2017/18 winter,” said Tim.

“As a result of this successful project the Club now enjoys the use of a highly capable irrigation system and we are well placed to ensure the delivery of the course in Championship condition for 2020.”

For more information, visit: reesinkturfcare.co.uk

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SALTEX Outdoor Demos A Sell Out

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SALTEX Outdoor Demos A Sell Out: Ahead of the 73rd anniversary of SALTEX at The NEC, Birmingham on 31 October – 01 November, show organisers have reported a significant increase in pre-show visitor registration.

Since moving to the NEC, the show has grown steadily in terms of exhibitors, floor space and visitor numbers and current figures for this year appear to hint towards SALTEX 2018 continuing the trend.

SALTEX Outdoor Demos A Sell Out

Visitor pre-registration for 2018 is at an all-time high with current figures 11% up on last year which reflects not only the quality of the show but also how accessible the NEC is. In the post-show survey, SALTEX 2017 attendees said that the venue, and convenient dates were key reasons behind their decisions to attend the FREE event. Located in the centre of the UK, whether you are travelling from overseas or within the UK, the NEC is easy to get to by car, rail or air.

Visitors from 41 different countries have already registered for SALTEX 2018. The majority will be travelling to the NEC from various parts in Europe but according to pre-registration data there will also be a large proportion of visitors attending SALTEX from as far as the likes of Australia, the USA, Japan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia – to name but a few.

Visitors will no doubt be looking forward to an impressive line-up of world-class innovation from over 300 exhibitors on the show floor. In addition to the wide range of innovative products on display within the indoor environment, visitors to SALTEX will have the chance to see many of these in action through the outdoor demonstrations which will be taking place on a grass area directly outside the SALTEX halls 6,7 and 8.

In fact, the outdoor demonstrations feature at SALTEX 2018 has completely sold out with a high number of exhibitors choosing to take outdoor plots.

This year, visitors can expect to see the latest line marking technology as demonstrated by Rigby Taylor, Intelligent Marking and Fleet Line Markers; Groundwater Dynamics will be showcasing equipment which helps deal with flooding and standing water issues; Skarper will be featuring their fabulous array of wood chippers and idverde will be constructing a mini football pitch consisting of Mixto reinforced natural hybrid turf.

SALTEX 2018 is free to attend. To register your attendance and beat the queues visit www.iogsaltex.com

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GKB At SALTEX 2018

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GKB At SALTEX 2018: GKB will be heading to the NEC for Saltex with a formidable line-up of their natural, synthetic and hybrid turf machinery. From brushing and cleaning artificial turf to tackling surface drainage and aeration, infill removal and sand spreading, there’s a smooth GKB machine to do the job efficiently, accurately and in less time for higher productivity.

The now well-known Combinator combines fraise mowing and verticutting grass areas, typically sports turf, while removing and loading the complete upper layer of unwanted turf.

Introduced at the show is a new hybrid blade option for the Combinator, for use on stitched, carpeted and hybrid grass.

GKB At SALTEX 2018

Quick Clean is a threepoint CAT I/II PTO operated machine for quick and thorough cleaning of artificial turf, sweeping up leaves, branches and dirt in a single pass. It uses a depth adaptable brush and shaking screen system to deposit dirt into a waste bin.

The GKB Rotobrush RB120 is designed to rejuvenate and maintain sports field artificial turf and help keep it in top condition. Dirt collecting between the fibres encourages algae growth and reduces drainage, causing deterioration. The Rotobrush offers a quick and easy method of removing dirt in a single pass, with a closed deck to prevent loss of collected infill material, to bring a heavily compacted surface back to life.

The multiple-operation GKB Ecodresser can be described as the ultimate machine for the maintenance of the sports pitch or golf course. In just one operation, multiple operations are combined. The turf is intensively aerated (20 cm deep) by means of the combination of cutting discs, coulters and fixed tines. At the same time as the dressing is applied to the upper layer the sub layer is aerated. You can level imperfections in your pitch by carrying the recycled dressing then scatter it in the desired place. This also creates excellent seeding conditions, improved drainage and enhances the development of rooting.

Problems with a compacted synthetic turf pitch, such as compacted infill responsible for a reduced water permeability, is dealt with by the GKB Renovator. Five rotating brushes quickly deal with the problem, leaving infill material on the pitch to be brushed in using the quick brush.

GKB At SALTEX 2018

A fast, efficient way of seeding and surface aerating with virtually no surface disturbance is achieved using the GKB Combiseeder. Creating over 1500 holes per m² it provides accurate seed application at various rates to suit different seed mixes, with drag brushes to incorporate seed and topdressing. The Combiseeder can be used for overseeding and initial seeding and offers a fast and efficient way of seeding and surface aerating, with virtually no surface disturbance. There’s a large seed hopper with agitator brush and you get accurate seed distribution from all seed mixes. There are models from 1.2m to 2.1m and there are options of a multi spike cast ring roller or Cambridge roll cast ring roller. The GKB range is on Stand H051 at Saltex.

For more information, visit: www.gkbmachines.com

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Eric Harris Set To Retire

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Eric Harris Set To Retire: Although rain has finally arrived at Stratford Racecourse, the hot summer temperatures were a challenge for head groundsman Eric Harris as he looked to produce good, safe ground at the height of the season.

Harris has announced his retirement after 23 years at Stratford and over 50 in all in racing at courses including Newton Abbott and Kelso.

He began in the racing industry as a 20-year-old member of the ground staff team at Newton Abbot, another course that races through the summer, where he worked for 23 years.

He then went onto Kelso and Warwick, both as head groundsman, before taking up his latest and final post at Stratford.

Harris will be replaced by Sam Linley, who started work with the ground staff team at Wincanton in May 2010, becoming assistant head groundsman.

Announcing the news, racecourse manager Ilona Barnett said: “We are delighted to be welcoming Sam to our team and we wish Eric many happy retirement years spent racing.”

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