Swansea Happy With Johnsons

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Swansea Happy With Johnsons: Liberty Stadium Swansea, the premier sports venue in south west Wales, is home to Swansea City Football Club and the Ospreys regional rugby team. Although being sceptical, head groundsman Dan Kirton, made the switch to Johnsons Sports Seed in 2015 and now admits that it would take “something seriously special” to make them use anything else! Between Johnsons Premier Pitch and J 4Turf mixtures, the team have achieved fantastic year-round results year on year.

“We had heard and read so many good things about the range that for our renovations in 2015 we gave it a go,” explained Dan. As a multi-sport venue, Dan, and his team of three, face a variety of challenges when it comes to managing the pitch. “We have on average 30 football and 20 rugby games a season, with sometimes just a single day turnaround between matches. Renovation can also be hectic – the concert schedule will determine how long we have to get the pitch match fit. To stand any chance of good results we need mixtures that germinate quickly.”

Swansea Happy With Johnsons

Because of their unique requirements, DLF’s Ian Barnett suggested using a combination of Johnsons J Premier Pitch during summer, and for the colder months, Johnsons J 4Turf. “If we have a rugby game on the Friday night, we’ll clean the pitch up and put J Premier Pitch down and by the following week we’re getting germination – you can’t ask for better than that!”. J Premier Pitch is the UK’s No.1 sports turf renovation mixture, containing Europe’s highest rated cultivars to deliver a sward with exceptional wear tolerance, density and rapid recovery under heavy wear. J 4Turf tetraploid rye ensures rapid establishment even under low soil temperatures making it ideal for autumn and winter overseeding.

“This year we have a concert on the 7th July giving us just three weeks for renovation before the first game of the new season. If we have any chance of getting the seed through in time we’ll definitely be continuing with our Johnsons Seed programme; it’s easily the best seed we’ve ever used and, backed up with support and advice from Ian, means we haven’t looked back since.”

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

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Milestones For Hunts Engineering

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Milestones For Hunts Engineering: Hunts Engineering Ltd is celebrating a double milestone this year after reaching its 10th anniversary in business and also its first year working in partnership with Kubota UK.

To celebrate these key milestones, the Midlands-based tractor and groundcare dealer recently held a special two-day event at its premises in Shipton-on-Stour, welcoming over 250 customers through its doors.

Milestones For Hunts Engineering

Visitors to the open days had the opportunity to see Kubota’s complete range of market leading groundcare solutions, with machinery experts from Hunts Engineering and Kubota UK on-hand to help and answer any questions and queries. A number of live demonstrations also took place across the two-day event, giving visitors the chance to see the machines in action.

Kubota UK’s partnership with Hunts Engineering is going from strength to strength since the two joined forces in 2017. For Hunts Engineering, it has enabled the business to target a much wider customer base.

Hunt’s Engineering’s latest partnership with Kubota UK has helped it to further target the commercial arena, allowing Hunts Engineering to supply machinery to commercial landscapers, local authorities and grounds maintenance professionals across Shipston and spanning a 20-mile radius including Banbury, Chipping Norton and Stratford.

For the first time, Hunts Engineering now supplies UTVs, sub-compact tractors and ride-on mowers through Kubota’s diverse product portfolio. This includes Kubota’s rugged RTV400, RTV500, RTV-X900 and RTV-X1140 utility vehicles, its new BX231, B Series and L1361 sub-compact tractors, and its high performance ride-on mowers, such as the GR Series and ZD122R.

Peter Hunt, Managing Director at Hunts Engineering Ltd, said: “As a family-run business, we are delighted to be celebrating our ten-year anniversary, whilst also marking our one-year milestone as a Kubota dealer.

“Becoming a Kubota groundcare dealer has enabled us to take the business to a new level, securing a breadth of both residential and commercial clients. Whilst its product range is second to none, Kubota’s commitment to aftersales and service also reflects our own dedication to servicing and parts, which remains very much at the core of our success.”

Having been an agricultural engineer for a number of years before launching the business with his wife, Julie, Hunts Engineering boasts a first class workshop and team of Kubota trained engineers who hold over 80 years of servicing experience between them.

Adrian Langmead, Groundcare Business Development Manager, added: “Over the last year we have seen significant growth through our partnership with Hunts Engineering. Our dealer network is vital to our continued growth and success, so having such a dedicated and committed dealership representing our product range, whilst also providing excellent aftersales service, is a fantastic extension of our brand. We look forward to continued success for many years to come.”

For more information on Kubota and its service solutions for the groundcare sector visit www.kubota.co.uk or call 01844 268000.

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Headland Bring Greens Back To Life

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Headland Bring Greens Back To Life: Over the autumn and winter of 2016/17, Basingstoke’s Test Valley Golf Club was hit with a serious Fusarium attack which left their greens weakened and scar damaged. Course Manager Dave Ross turned to Alex Hawkes of Headland Amenity to help with the creation of a recovery programme – applied it at the right time to maximise the results by using the Headland WeatherCheck service.

“Looking back at it now, the greens didn’t go into the period as strong as they should have been, leaving them vulnerable to disease” explains Dave, who heads up a team of 4 greenkeepers. “It was clear the damage from the Fusarium attack was extensive so I asked Alex for advice to put together a recovery plan, to try and give the greens a kick start into spring.” Alex recommended C-Complex 5-2-10, an organic mineral fertiliser capable of working in low temperatures making it an ideal spring starter.

Headland Bring Greens Back To Life

Alex explains, “I told Dave how C-Complex could provide a burst of early growth, which could help to grow the disease scars back in. However, to give it the best chance, I consulted the WeatherCheck service to find the optimum window of opportunity. As this was February, I was not overly hopeful however I could see there was an uplift in ‘Growth Potential’ imminent so we organised a next day delivery of the product for Dave to apply – the products performance, coupled with the window of increased soil temperatures, delivered amazing results and gave the greens the kick start they needed moving into the main playing season.”

“It was a new product to us” says Dave, “but it did exactly what Alex said it would.” Following this, between April and September they’ve had success on the greens with a programme of Seamac Ultra Plus, C-Complex and TeMag Elite. “We’ve also kept an eye on the ‘Evapotranspiration’ module on WeatherCheck which gives us an idea of when the greens are likely to experience drought stress. Using this information, we have been using TriCure Granular as a pre-emptive stress reliever on the driest areas, again to great effect.”

Headland’s WeatherCheck is a customer and postcode weather service which features a general 7- day forecast, as well as detailed 3-hourly, daily weather forecasts showing predicted rainfall, expected wind strength and precipitation probability. It also contains many specific agronomic modules, facilitating the turf manager to take a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to programmes and applications.

For more information, visit: www.headlandamenity.com

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Bayer’s New Total Herbicide

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Bayer’s New Total Herbicide: A new pre and early post-emergence total herbicide, for controlling annual and perennial weeds, has been released by Bayer into the Irish market, and is now available to purchase.

Pistol® Flex brings a new active ingredient, to the market for broad spectrum control over a wide range of uses including treatments applied to open soil, gravel surfaces, fence lines, industrial areas and railway ballast.

Bayer's New Total Herbicide

Greg Collins, of the Bayer Turf Solutions Team, explains that the herbicide’s dual active formulation contains 360g/kg diflufenican and 10g/kg iodosulfuron-methyl-sodium.

“This gives a two-pronged approach to weed control, targeting germinating seedlings through residual action, and the leaves on contact.

“The product provides excellent control for even the hardest to tackle weeds and is also compatible for use under a variety of tree and shrub species.”

Resistance management

Greg adds that using Pistol® Flex can help amenity contractors to minimise resistance as part of an integrated vegetation management (IVM) programme.

“The combined active ingredients give a dual mode of action and therefore reduce the chance of resistance occurring.

Flexible applications

“The herbicide can be used flexibly, as a standalone application on bare ground for pre-emergence stages. Alternatively, after the two leaf post emergence stage it can be mixed with glyphosate to enhance performance.

“And due to this robust performance in different environments, the product offers good residual control for three to four months, which may save the operator returning for repeated applications,” says Greg.

Pistol® Flex is available to purchase from Unichem and Sprayclear Environmental and is supplied in convenient 10g sachets to easily add into a knapsack or 500g packs for those that need to treat a larger area.

For more information visit: www.environmentalscience.bayer.co.uk  or contact the Turf Solutions Team at turfsolutions@bayer.com

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Don’t Get Held Hosta(ge) By Slugs

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Don’t Get Held Hosta(ge) By Slugs: Hostas are loved by many gardeners, as they have the most amazing foliage that can offer both dense ground cover and interesting structure to pots. They are resilient and easy to grow, thriving especially well in light to medium shade. They also often have beautiful fragrant flowers, making them a real asset to any garden.  

Growing hostas is easy, as they do not require much fussing, and will grow on any fertile, moisture-retentive garden soil. A bit of organic matter can be added to soil where there is not much shade and the earth is dry, but once they have fully established, after around five years, they will need little to no interference from the gardener.

Don’t Get Held Hosta(ge) By Slugs

The main problem, as any gardener will agree, when it comes to hostas, is the fact that slugs adore them. They can be entirely decimated early on in the season if preventative measures are not taken.

A great, and easy, way to make sure that your hostas are protected, is by watering on nematodes. As nematodes are able to travel through the soil, to where the newly hatched and young slugs dwell, they are able to attack them before they are even in sight, unlike slug pellets. A regular regime of using Nemaslug every six weeks is the most effective way to keep slugs at bay throughout the growing season, and will help to ensure that your hostas survive another year!

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