MM seed making waves

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MM seed making waves: Newquay Golf Club is reaping the rewards from using three mixtures belonging to the market-leading MM grass seed portfolio.

Newquay may well be known more for its surfing and sandy beaches, but it also boasts a truly superb golf course. Located in the heart of the town, the picturesque 18-hole Newquay Golf Club is a challenging yet rewarding links course.

MM seed making waves

MM seed making waves

Dan Kendle, who has been a greenkeeper for the entirety of his career, moved to the Southwest seven years ago to take on the head greenkeeper role at Newquay Golf Club. It was his first managerial position in golf, and with a thriving membership and renowned for having some of the best greens in the county, it’s safe to say that Dan has made his mark.

His attention to detail and his insistence on using only the best products certainly has helped Dan to maximise results.

“I’ve never insisted on using one particular brand or manufacturer,” he said. “The most important thing is to use the products that work best on the course.”

Dan understands the importance of having a grass seed he can rely on and for the past two years he has been impressed with a range of MM grass seed mixtures.

“David Bevan from Agrovista Amenity recommended the MM brand to me, and I’m glad he did,” said Dan. “I started by using MM13 on fairways and tees, and a little bit of MM50 on some high-wear areas, such as walkways. They have performed really well. It is a small compact course, so the tees and walkways tend to get a lot of wear, and these mixtures have given us a lot more wear tolerance.”

As Dan says, MM13 is a high-quality traditional mixture for overseeding or renovating fine dense tees, fairways and roughs, particularly where maintenance and input levels are low. It has good winter colour and high disease resistance. MM50, one of the UK’s biggest selling grass mixtures, is also ideal for use on extreme wear areas and is fast establishing and resilient.

Dan and the team overseed the fairways and tees with these two mixtures twice a year in the spring and autumn but will also target specific areas as and when needed.

Based on the success of those mixtures, David decided to investigate which MM mixture would be beneficial to his greens. After consultation with Matt Gresty from MM Seeds and David Bevan from Agrovista Amenity, he decided that the all-new MM Coastal mixture would be the way forward.

“We actually did some trial plots with the MM Coastal mixture and based on the results we decided to overseed the greens with it,” he said. “It is a 100% slender creeping red fescue mixture which has a high salt tolerance. This is perfect for us because we are very exposed here. It is a dry site too so the fact that MM Coastal is drought tolerant, works very well for us.

“My plan is to start overseeding the greens and surrounds with MM Coastal on a more regular basis now,” continued Dan. “I’ll probably apply it at a lower rate every 5-6 weeks just to keep pumping the fescues into them to try and out-compete the areas of less desirable species such as Poa.”

“Germination is excellent and that is across all three seed varieties. You also get great colour from the mixtures all year round. On top of that, I get good support and backup from both Matt and David. I can always bounce ideas around with them and we enjoy discussing different overseeding techniques.

“With MM – it’s the whole package.”

For further information, please contact MM Sports Seed on 01386 791102 or visit the company’s new website www.mm-seeds.co.uk. You can also follow the company on Twitter: @MM_Seed

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Rapid ROI on Capillary Bunkers

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Rapid ROI on Capillary Bunkers: Last year, the six-course Landings Club, in Savannah, Georgia, installed the Capillary Bunkers liner on its Magnolia course, as part of a large-scale renovation with Arnold Palmer Design architect Brandon Johnson. And director of ground and projects Chris Steigelman says the results are already showing the wisdom of that decision.

“We have dabbled with various bunker drainage techniques across our courses, though none of them apart from Magnolia have wall to wall liners,” he says. “But part of the goals of the renovation project was to reduce our bunker maintenance workload. Brandon’s designs called for the bunker surface area to be reduced by 50 per cent, and with the Capillary Bunkers liner, the amount of time we now spend on bunker sand maintenance has gone down dramatically.”

Rapid ROI on Capillary Bunkers

Rapid ROI on Capillary Bunkers

The new-look Magnolia has retained the steeply flashed bunker faces that the course previously had, and Steigelman says that the liner has played an important role in making the design work effectively. “We get around fifty inches of rain a year, and in the summertime we often get thunderstoms coming from out of nowhere and dumping a huge load of rain on us,” he explains. “Previously, every time we got a big rain, the bunkers were destroyed, and I had to put several guys on rebuilding them for several days. Now, that doesn’t happen.”

The club started the renovation project in March 2021, with the Capillary Bunkers installation starting in June. The bunkers were finished in August, and the course reopened – hosting a Korn Ferry Tour event in its first week – at the start of November. Georgia-based contractor Todd Godwin Construction handled the work.

Steigelman says the benefits of the Capillary Bunkers technology have already been made very clear. “We operate two golf courses out of the Magnolia maintenance facility, the Marshwood course as well as Magnolia,” he says. “We got hit by two tropical storms, one on a Sunday night at the end of June: seven inches of rain, four in an hour and a half. It trashed the bunkers on Marshwood, to the extent that we had to spend $25,000 dollars on new bunker sand. The bunkers on Magnolia were like nothing had ever happened. It was incredible. I took our board out there and said to them ‘This is what you’re paying for’.”

“I’m very grateful that we chose Capillary Bunkers, because of the ease of installation. During the build, it was raining every day, and so we wouldn’t have been able to install some of the competitor products. But the guys were just out there laying the concrete and then putting plastic sheeting over it to help it dry!”

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‘Consistent’ Mansfield Sand praised

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‘Consistent’ Mansfield Sand praised: Good consistent products and excellent customer service are the two reasons why Jeremy Browne, Head Greenkeeper at the Herefordshire Golf Club, chooses to use Mansfield Sand.

Established in 1896, the Herefordshire could well be the oldest club in the County, but it certainly is moving with the times. The new owners have invested in a number of improvements as they attempt to boost membership and secure the future of the club.

‘Consistent’ Mansfield Sand praised

‘Consistent’ Mansfield Sand praised

Jeremy, who has been at the club for 21 years, is playing an integral role in this respect too.

“There are four of us that manage the course, one of whom is an apprentice, and it is important to look ahead,” he said. “The plan is to bring in more apprentices because the three of us senior members of staff are all in our late fifties, so whether we like it or not, we probably won’t still be working here in say ten years. It is essential that we leave the course in safe hands – we want people to come through and learn all our knowledge and benefit from our experience.”

One tip Jeremy will be sure to pass down is how a high-quality sand can be vital to the overall health and performance of a golf course. Therefore, choosing the right sand is not a decision to be taken lightly – as he explains.

“We did use another company for our sand, but we were having problems getting deliveries and the products were not consistent,” he said. “We’re a hilly, clay-based course and it gets incredibly wet in the winter, so I wanted a good consistent, coarse sand to introduce into the greens.

“I did some research and had lots of samples sent to me. We looked at the analysis of all of them, tried them all and the one we decided on was Mansfield Sand’s MM35.”

Jeremy chose Mansfield’s MM35 Golf pure silica sand for top-dressing his greens because it brings a number of benefits such as improved recovery, firmness, smoothness and an improved rootzone. MM35 Golf also makes for a great bunker sand as it has fantastic playing characteristics as well as being aesthetically attractive.

Sourced directly from the company’s Two Oaks Quarry in Mansfield, the Mansil Silica products are predominantly used in the construction and maintenance of a wide range of sports surfaces – from winter sports pitches, golf courses, bowling greens and all amenity turf areas.

‘Consistent’ Mansfield Sand praised

‘Consistent’ Mansfield Sand praised

“Once you pick a top-dressing, it is best to stick with it, providing it is good of course,” said Jeremy. “I don’t believe in using different ones all the time because you end up getting a build-up of different sands in your profile.

“The consistency on the MM35 seems to be very good, and my aim is for it to help improve drainage and keep the surface dry. We use the product on all of the greens and on our tees too. I’d like to top-dress the greens monthly and I’m hoping to be able to do that with MM35 sooner rather than later.

“The service from Mansfield Sand is also excellent – I like my deliveries to have come and gone before the golfers get in at 8am and they have never let me down.”

For more information visit www.mansfield-sand.co.uk

You can also follow the company on Twitter – @MansfieldSand and Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/MansfieldSandSportSurfaces/

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Martyn Parrish joins ICL

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Martyn Parrish joins ICL: Martyn Parrish has joined ICL as Technical Area Sales Manager for North London and surrounding counties.

Martyn began his career in greenkeeping and started working at his local golf club at the age of 16. During his time as a Greenkeeper, he completed his foundation degree in Sportsturf Management at Myerscough College and participated in the Ohio State Programme on a 12-month internship in which he worked on a Jack Nicklaus course construction and a grow-in in Texas – something which he pinpoints as a career highlight.

Martyn Parrish joins ICL

Martyn Parrish joins ICL

He then moved away from golf and accepted a position as a Grounds Manager on an ambitious landscape construction project of a 400-acre site in Henley on Thames.

Martyn worked in this role for six years before joining Maxwell Amenity, later to be acquired by Agrovista Amenity, as a Technical Area Sales Manager.

During this four-year period, he developed an impressive portfolio of clients, and believes that his experience will prove to be of great benefit in his new role at ICL.

“I will be working with a lot of the same people in many of the same areas,” said Martyn. “It also helps that I am very familiar with the ICL brand, and I know what the company stands for.

“I worked with some fantastic people at Agrovista Amenity and many of them will be friends for life, but you have to keep challenging yourself to reach another level, and the opportunity to join ICL was just too good to turn down.”

Martyn will be operating throughout North London and counties such as Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire, visiting new and prospective customers from various facilities and sectors, which is the part of the job he loves most.

“In this line of work it is important to feel that you are in a two-way relationship with the customer, assisting them to help them reach their best possible level,” he said. “When you can see that you are making a difference, that is when it feels really good – that is job satisfaction.”

After spending the entirety of his career to date in the turf and amenity industry, Martyn admits that times are changing, but with the backing of ICL, he certainly feels prepared for whatever challenges lie ahead.

“Product regulations and climate change are arguably the biggest challenges,” he said. “Customers are also asking different questions about products too, and they are looking for answers that are backed by research.

“ICL has been doing that for a long time now; and it will be a privilege to work with some of the most knowledgeable people in the industry selling the best products.”

Outside of work, Martyn likes being active and still enjoys a game of golf . He  has completed three Iron Man races and has represented Great Britain in the World Triathlon Grand Finals.

Please contact ICL on 01473 237100 or visit www.icl-sf.co.uk or www.icl-sf.ie if you are in Ireland.

For more news and insightful views, you can follow ICL on Twitter @ICL_Turf

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Ventrac for Stellar Asset Management

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Ventrac for Stellar Asset Management: Stellar Asset Management, working in partnership with Ben Blackburn Golf, has purchased two Ventrac golf course maintenance equipment packages for their properties in Perth, Scotland and Hampshire in England.

Murrayshall Country Estate, situated in Scone near Perth features a four-star country house hotel and 28-holes of stunning parkland golf, while the recently acquired Bramshaw Golf Club has 36-holes of golf set in the beautiful surroundings of the New Forest near Lyndhurst.

Ventrac for Stellar Asset Management

Ventrac for Stellar Asset Management

Commenting on the new equipment, Ben Blackburn said, “Although these two golf courses are over 500 miles apart, they are similar in that they are both located in magnificent parkland settings. This brings its own challenges, especially when maintaining the woodland margins, and this where the Ventrac and its numerous attachments comes into its own.

“At Bramshaw the package comprises a selection of attachments including Power Broom, Power Rake, Stump Grinder, Trencher, Turbine Blower as well as two cutting decks; a Contour deck and Tough Cut.

This provides a range of equipment to ensure that the presentation on the Manor and Forest courses are at the highest level all year round to the benefit our members and visitors. We are also undertaking major drainage work this winter which the Trencher attachment, in particular, will help us to proceed this project at speed.

“Similarly, at Murrayshall the package, which includes two mowing decks, a Trencher, Power Broom and Snow Blade, will be used to maintain both the golf courses and the 365 acres of picturesque countryside that surround this flourishing country estate, located right in the heart of Scotland.

“It’s the versatility of the Ventrac that attracted us to this equipment; one compact tractor unit with multiple attachments ensures that we have a portfolio of tools to tackle most jobs at these facilities without the need to hire in additional machinery. This allows us to actively manage our golf businesses and enhance our facilities, adding value to the golfing experience.”

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