SpeedwayTotal the one for Weedfree

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SpeedwayTotal the one for Weedfree: Richard Stow, Managing Director of Weedfree, has revealed why the market-leading company has relied on the spray adjuvant Speedway Total for so long.

“We have been using Speedway Total to enhance the uptake and activity of our total herbicide applications for many years and we are very happy with it,” said Richard. “It always gets us good results and we wouldn’t dream of not using it.”

SpeedwayTotal the one for Weedfree

SpeedwayTotal the one for Weedfree

Weedfree has been a market leader for railway, industrial and amenity weed control for over 50 years, providing weed control and vegetation clearance services to the rail industry, local authorities, industry, utilities and power generators.

“You name it – we spray it,” said Richard, and indeed they do. The company employs up to 150 members of staff during its busiest periods with operatives spraying everything from footpaths to rail tracks and everything in between.

It is for this reason that the company needs to have confidence in a product and that is where Speedway Total comes in. However, Richard admits that this was not always the case.

“We didn’t always use Speedway,” he said. “Initially we used a competitor product, but we had lots of problems with it. The chemistry, the active ingredients – it was causing problems with our operators, who were complaining about irritation on their skin and around their eyes. We also found that, in accordance with the label, we were putting a lot of product in the tank.

“It was at this point that we discussed the issue with Ed Carter (Sales & Development Manager for ICL), and he suggested using Speedway Total. We tried it, we liked it and we have stuck with it ever since. It was less product going in the tank, there was not any reduction in efficacy, and it was very cost effective.”

ICL’s Speedway Total is a spray adjuvant that contains a blend of surfactants and spreaders. It is designed to enhance the effect of glyphosate and other total and/ or non-selective herbicide treatments. Speedway Total assists herbicide penetration into the leaf cuticle by dissolving the waxy leaf coating.

The surfactants and spreaders also aid the treatment spreading properties, reduce the risk of wash-off and increase the herbicidal uptake. It can be used speed up the response from total herbicide treatments and also enhance the uptake and control for difficult to control weeds such as rhododendron, bracken, Japanese knotweed, brush wood weeds, nettles and docks, sow thistles and others.

With more and more local authorities re-examining their use of glyphosate herbicides Richard claims that the reduced volume needed with Speedway Total was a huge selling point.

“To be honest, I was dubious to start with because it less than half the amount of volume we were using with the previous product. I was thinking – how could this possibly work! But it does work – incredibly well.

“There is a real appetite to reduce the amount of herbicide that is applied, and with Speedway Total we can reduce it down to about three and a half litres per hectare which is quite a significant reduction. We still get the results that keeps both the local authorities and us happy.

“When we tender, we find that Speedway Total may well give us the competitive edge over someone who might use a different product at a higher rate. We can certainly demonstrate that over the course of a three-year contract we can significantly reduce glyphosate while still eliminating problematic weeds.

“Ultimately, I would say that Speedway Total has helped us to be more efficient and I would highly recommend the product.”

Please contact ICL on +44 1473 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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Hayter celebrates 75th anniversary

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Hayter celebrates 75th anniversary: From horse-drawn to horsepower, Britain’s favourite lawnmower manufacturer Hayter is celebrating 75 years of lawn mowing.

Hayter, makers of the finest mowers, have been designed and manufactured at the Spellbrook headquarters in Hertfordshire since 1946. And the company is still operating and innovating the lawn care industry from the same site today.

Hayter celebrates 75th anniversary

Hayter celebrates 75th anniversary

Beginning with Douglas Hayter and a horse-drawn rotary motor, combined with a second hand two-stroke engine, the first ever Hayter rotary lawnmower was created. Requests then came for Douglas to create more machines for his friends and neighbours. Soon after, Hayter became incorporated as a limited company, with Douglas’ mowers entering full production.

In the following years the Hayter business went on to design and manufacture many successful lawnmowers, including the extremely popular and iconic Hayterette machine in 1957, which was awarded the BAGMA award for “Best Horticultural Machine of the Year”.

In 1960, Hayter received one of the country’s finest accolades, being granted the Royal Warrant for the supply of machinery to HM Queen Elizabeth II, an honour still retained to this day.

The 1970’s saw the introduction of Hayter’s flagship and most popular lawnmower, the Hayter Harrier, which was one of the first rotary-bladed lawnmowers to feature an integrated heavy rear-roller, enabling the user to achieve the quintessentially British, striped finish in their gardens.

Craig Hoare, Sales and Marketing Manager at Hayter said: “With the Harrier range still in production today, it is great to see Douglas Hayter’s legacy still continuing on. His eye for innovation is still at the core of everything we do at Hayter, with our new range or Harrier mowers being fully battery powered, while still retaining the power and quality of a petrol Harrier machine. We continue to design and engineer all Hayter machines in Britain, at the Spellbrook headquarters – just down the road from where Douglas lived and created the first Hayter lawnmowers.

“It is a real honour to continue Douglas’ work in this new age, 75 years on, from his original genius and innovation.”

For more information on Hayter, please visit: https://www.hayter.co.uk/

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Confidence is high at Bromsgrove

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Confidence is high at Bromsgrove: Head groundsperson Richard Hare, has reported excellent results from using a selection of Limagrain products at the outstanding Bromsgrove School in Worcestershire.

Founded in the Middle Ages, Bromsgrove is one of the country’s largest independent schools with a glowing reputation for both academic and sporting excellence. Astonishingly, given the size of it, you can drive through Bromsgrove town and not even see the School. How is this possible? Well, according to most, Bromsgrove keeps one hundred acres of secrets from a casual visitor, hidden like a vast walled garden – and this is where Richard Hare comes in.

Confidence is high at Bromsgrove

Confidence is high at Bromsgrove

Richard is responsible for the all the sports pitches and green spaces across the School’s three sites and leads a team of 15 members of staff consisting of groundspersons and gardeners. Depending on the term, the team maintains an array of pitches, which includes rugby, football, hockey and cricket. However, with such a busy schedule it leaves a tight window for renovations.

“The winter renovation work takes place during the school Easter holidays,” said Richard. “As part of this renovation, we will over-seed all the grass areas with a Limagrain winter sports mix. We carry out the cricket renovations after the cricket festivals which finish the second week of August. The rugby pre-season training starts the last week of August.”

It is during this period that Richard relies on a range of Limagrain UK’s grass seed which includes the headline mixture MM50 for his cricket wickets. Over recent years, Limagrain’s MM50 has been the number one choice for cricket groundsmen. Those representing grass roots, schools, local clubs and international test venues have all benefited from using MM50. This hard-wearing mix has rapid germination, very fine leaved appearance, high shoot density and is tolerant to very close mowing, along with high disease resistance. All these attributes together produce a fantastic sward that has great colour all year round.

“I buy seed from Limagrain UK which covers all the grass areas for cricket and rugby,” continued Richard. “Grass seed, as anyone will tell you, is a massive investment and I can’t afford to apply that amount of grass seed and just hope that it will work. I need to have the confidence that it will germinate especially as we have such a small renovation window. I have that confidence with Limagrain and that is why I have used the seed for so long.

“We don’t have irrigation on all the pitches, and we don’t get a lot of rain in August and it still germinates. We always get great coverage.”

Grass seed aside, Richard also revealed that some of the School’s most aesthetically pleasing areas are thanks to Limagrain UK’s Colour Splash mixtures.  Over the past few years, these flower mixtures have been used in a broad range of landscape and amenity areas throughout the UK. The range has a floral arrangement for every requirement – whether it be a golf course, a local authority green space or any other establishment that has an area which needs brightening up.

The Colour Splash range of mixtures are extremely easy to sow and the resulting vigorous plants are more than capable of competing with weeds. Their vigour is equally matched by robustness; resisting long periods of drought. They are also fast flowering and cost effective.

Confidence is high at Bromsgrove

Confidence is high at Bromsgrove

“We use the Colour Splash mixtures in eight different areas around the School,” said Richard. “The main reason for applying these mixtures was because I wanted to create some wildlife friendly areas. The School and the students have really bought into it and the areas look absolutely stunning – we are always getting nice comments from teachers, pupils and parents.

“Also, we find that these areas are helping us to save on fuel and man hours too because previously they needed cutting and looking after regularly. Now, we just cut the areas and reseed once a year – that is all they need. We just seem to be adding more and more of these Colour Splash areas all the time.”

Richard was also quick to praise the support from both Limagrain and Agrovista Amenity – the company he purchases the seed from.

“I always have good conversations with Mark Allen (Agrovista Amenity) and Matt Gresty (Limagrain UK) and they will come in and help us in any way they can. The advice has been invaluable at times.”

For further information, please contact Limagrain UK on 01472 371471 or visit the company’s website www.lgseeds.co.uk/amenity – you can also follow the company on Twitter: @MM_Seed

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Knebworth’s plant health programme

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Knebworth’s plant health programme: An enhanced plant health programme consisting of Headland Amenity’s 20-20-30 tank-mix, Mantle® and PPT114 has been key to reducing fungicide applications at Hertfordshire’s Knebworth Golf Club.

Where, previously, it was commonplace to be putting down multiple fungicide applications each year, last year Team Leader Arran Johnson applied just one – resulting in benefits for both course condition and the budget!

Knebworth's plant health programme

Knebworth’s plant health programme

Arran has been using Headland products for the last 15 years and, since he joined Knebworth, they have been fundamental to his maintenance regime on the course’s clay push-up greens. The success of the programme has recently seen it extended to also include tees and approaches. “We have had a particularly great response from the 20-20-30 tank-mix, but the addition of Mantle® and complementary applications of PPT114 have taken results to a new level” he explains.

“20-20-30+Mantle is applied at the beginning of each month from October through to May, weather dependent, to keep disease at bay through those high-pressure periods. What we’ve found is that if there are any signs of disease, the addition of Mantle® checks it at a very early stage to suppress it and stop it turning into a bigger problem.” Mantle®’s water-soluble formulation of manganese, zinc and harpin protein elicitor stimulates the grass plant’s own natural defence mechanisms, making it more difficult for some disease pathogens to take hold.

“We also apply Headland’s PPT114, as required, a couple of weeks after the 20-20-30+Mantle® application. This has proven to increase the efficacy of the tank-mix, bringing additional plant strength and improved winter colour.” Through the summer months, Arran’s programme switches to one of moisture management – utilising both Tricure AD™ wetting agent and Terafirm™, advanced soil penetrant, when required to manage and optimise plant and profile moisture.

Keeping the team up to speed on new products and any adjustments needed to further improve the results of the feeding programme is Arran’s Regional Technical Manager Peter Blackaby. “I made a conscious decision in 2019 to actively reduce our fungicide applications. Pete’s guidance has helped us a lot with this drive and the Mantle® and PPT114 products have undoubtedly given us a huge step forward.”

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Technology for a cleaner cut

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Technology for a cleaner cut: In order to create the best quality lawn for your customers, turf health is paramount and one of the key things that can help ensure the best turf condition possible is technology in the form of an electronic fuel injection (EFI) engine from Kawasaki.

Mowing is one of the most important aspects of maintaining a good quality lawn and having the right technology can largely determine the success or failure of it, says Lee Skinner, head of sales, Kawasaki Motors Europe: “We’re so often asked what the main thing professional gardeners, landscapers and groundsmen can do to ensure the best possible condition of their turf and the simple answer is to invest in technology.”

Technology for a cleaner cut

Technology for a cleaner cut

Kawasaki now offer five EFI models in their line-up from the FS730V EFI, part of their mid-range commercial series, right up to the FX1000V EFI, the most powerful in Kawasaki’s line-up. These have earned unrivalled support from mowing professionals for their ability to maintain optimal blade tip speed regardless of lawn conditions.

An electronic fuel injection system is a key component to achieving clean-cut mowing. It works with the control system of the electronic throttle to inject fuel in a highly precise manner to maximise output and fuel efficiency. As a result, the engine’s rpm remains unchanged and good operational efficiency is maintained even if the load fluctuates.

Lee continues: “If an engine gets overloaded and blade tip rotation slows when trimming overgrown grass or working on a slope, the mower will fail to produce a sharp cut, no matter how sharp the actual blades are. If a mower’s speed and blade rotation are unaffected by changes in load ー that is, if the engine’s rpm remains stable ー the grass will be cut cleanly.

“The instant throttle response of a Kawasaki EFI engine eliminates engine speed ‘drop’ and allows constant machine operation for a more consistent cut over heavy turf, tall grass and up steep hills. Plus, blade speed holds steady giving a cleaner cut on the first pass.”

In practise how does the technology of the engine affect turf health? Lee says: “Keeping a smooth consistent pace when cutting is key, applicable to all mowing equipment, walk-behind mowers and ride-ons. Start-stop and faltering that lingers over areas is not desirable. This is where good engine governing benefits like the EFI engine, electronically governed for instant reaction to throttle input, drastically reduces engine speed slow-down and in extreme cases, stalling.”

It’s not just the EFI technology that brings a better cut from a Kawasaki engine though as Lee concludes: “The premium build quality of Kawasaki engines lends itself to a strong, robust performance in a wide range of environments. We have an engine range that covers almost every aspect of equipment needs for an operator to maintain turf to the highest level, whatever the landscape and wherever they are in Europe.”

To find out more about Kawasaki’s full engine range, including EFI visit https://www.kawasaki-engines.eu/en/

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