9 year old launches mowing business

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9 year old launches mowing business: A nine-year-old from Kent has launched his own lawn mowing business so he can save up to become a tree surgeon.

Read the full article from KentOnline here

9 year old launches mowing business

9 year old launches mowing business

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T H WHITE completes acquisition

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T H WHITE completes acquisition: T H WHITE Group has now completed the acquisition of Murley Agricultural Supplies Ltd, including its Agriculture, Construction, Garden Machinery & Smallholders & Estates operations at Warwick and Stourport. Murley’s Vehicle business is not part of this acquisition.

Combining Murley’s impressive track record in its trading sectors with the resources of T H WHITE – which has been in business since 1832 – will facilitate ever-increasing levels of customer service and support. For staff and customers it’s really business as usual, with just a name change above the door.

T H WHITE completes acquisition

T H WHITE completes acquisition

At the Warwick branch Murley’s Agricultural operations now trade as T H WHITE Agriculture and the Garden Machinery side of the business will continue under the T H WHITE Country Store & Garden Machinery brand. At the Stourport branch Murley’s Construction operations now trade as T H WHITE Construction and the agricultural business now trades as T H WHITE Agriculture, as at Warwick.

The deal means that T H WHITE’s trading territory for New Holland, Manitou and other leading agricultural brands has now been expanded to embrace Warwickshire and Worcestershire, while the Doosan construction machinery franchise at Stourport has been added to T H WHITE’s existing construction offering from Manitou, New Holland and Mecalac.

The new T H WHITE branches are located at: Nelson Lane Sandy Lane Industrial Estate Warwick Titton

Warwickshire                              Stourport-on-Severn
CV34 5JB                                     Worcestershire DY13 9QB
01926 494336                             01299 827002

Opening hours remain the same and all the familiar faces will be there to help customers make the best choices for their business from an extensive stock of equipment and genuine parts. Added to that, customers will now be able to benefit from the businesses being part of a larger group that has built its reputation on helping people get the best from their machinery, land and buildings, across generations.

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Ventrac package for Leicester training centre

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Ventrac package for Leicester training centre: Leicester City Football Club, last season’s FA Cup winners, is the latest organisation to appreciate the multiple benefits of Ventrac.

Delivered by local dealer, Farols, the package included a Ventrac 4500 all-terrain compact tractor in dual-wheel configuration, a Contour mowing deck, Trencher and Power Broom and will be used to maintain their new world-class training centre of at Seagrave in Leicestershire.

Ventrac package for Leicester training centre

Ventrac package for Leicester training centre

Following a demonstration earlier this year and with input from his team, John Ledwidge, Head of Sports Turf and Grounds at the Premier League club, specified the purchase.  He is an integral part of the team that has developed the world-class training facility, where he oversees the management and development of the 180-acre site. This includes the equivalent of 14 turf pitches, synthetic pitches, a 9-hole golf course and the world’s first dedicated Sports Turf Academy.

Commenting on the latest addition to the machinery fleet, he said,

“Our owner is passionate about this football club and the community we share. He wants the very best and this facility demonstrates that commitment. We all share his vision and our aim is to make this the premier training centre in Europe.

“To be fair, we took a lot of our inspiration from the exceptional job Darren Baldwin has done at Tottenham’s facility, where we first saw the Ventrac in action during the research phase of the plan. I’d also seen it at various trade fairs and in the media. We needed a machine that was highly versatile, that can help us here improve a site that’s going to be constantly evolving over the next five years.

“The Contour deck helps us maintain the numerous banks and sloped areas around the complex, including ‘Mount Vardy’, the nickname we’ve given to a landscaped area of unused spoil from the original build. It is also used on the golf course where its articulated design prevents scalping. We’ve used the Trencher to insert drainage bands in some particularly wet areas of the golf course and the Power Broom does a great job on the pathways and carparks. It’s all about quality presentation and the versatility of the Ventrac helps us achieve the high standards demanded here.”

Chris Minton is the club’s Head Mechanic, supervising a team of three in the state-of-the-art Maintenance Facility located within the Sports Turf Academy building. Commenting on the Ventrac he said, “It’s a very good and impressive piece of kit; robustly constructed and powerful, considering it has a sub-25 hp engine. It’s simple to work on, all the belts are easily accessible as are the greasing points and the flip-up decks make our job easier when we need to access the blades or blade spindles. Definitely a very good addition to our fleet.”

John Ledwidge’s career

John began his career in 2002 as an apprentice groundsman at Coventry City where, at the tender age of 19, he was promoted to Deputy Head Groundsman. In 2008 he was appointed Assistant Grounds Manager at Aston Villa and 18 months later returned to Coventry to take up the Head Groundsman role, where he was responsible for directing pitch preparations for the London 2012 Olympics at the City of Coventry Stadium (now the Ricoh Arena).

Following the much-publicised issues at Coventry during this time, he then joined Ricoh Arena in the role of Grounds Manager and in 2014 was successful when he applied for Head Groundsman’s position at Leicester City. In 2016 he was promoted to Grounds Manager and then in July 2019 he took up his current role as Head of Sports Turf and Grounds, where he leads a team of 52 staff working across multiple sites and is actively involved in the ongoing development and investment in the class-leading sports turf surfaces at the club.

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Fourth fleet for Haydock Park

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Fourth fleet for Haydock Park: It was the fourth time last Christmas when Cheshire Turf Machinery in Stockport provided another Toro fleet on a five-year operating lease to Haydock Park Golf Club in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside – an agreement that began in January 2006.

Terry Wharton, head greenkeeper, who has worked at Haydock Park for 41 years, overseeing a team of six full-time greenkeepers and one part-time, has remained loyal to the Toro brand, crediting excellent build quality, longevity, performance, better ergonomics, user feel, seating, controls and operation as the reasons for constant renewal of their five-year plan with Cheshire Turf Machinery.

Fourth fleet for Haydock Park

Fourth fleet for Haydock Park

Some of the machines included in the order are two Greensmaster TriFlex Hybrid 3420 mowers, a Reelmaster 3100-D cylinder mower, one Reelmaster 3575-D, a Groundsmaster 4000-D, one GreensPro 1260 greens roller, one Workman HDX utility vehicle, an Agrimetal B35 Blower and one TYM393 tractor with loader.

“It’s what we had in the past so we know how reliable they are,” says Terry. “This combination has always done a perfect job for us. With the TriFlex 3420, we have the 11-blade units for both machines but also the eight blades so we can swap over and that gives us options with the versatility of changing the units. We had the 3250s and we’ve upgraded to the new versions. The quality of the cut is really noticeable.”

Other factors weighing in on the team’s decision to acquire a brand-new fleet are having eco-friendly machines that reduce carbon emissions and consumption. Terry comments on the Greensmaster TriFlex Hybrid 3420: “We’ve seen an enormous saving on fuel. We feel that it’s going the right way as far as the energy laws are concerned. It’s good for everyone – the environment and other users – so yes, the Triflexs, especially, are very energy-smart. Fuel consumption has been significantly reduced.”

Terry and the team have maintained a solid partnership with Cheshire Turf Machinery for over 25 years, a dealer they know very well and who has never let them down.

Steve Halley, managing director at Cheshire Turf Machinery, comments: “We are thrilled that Haydock Park Golf Club has chosen to further extend its long-term relationship with Toro and Cheshire Turf Machinery. On each occasion, the club has embraced the opportunity to bring in new technology to help the continued development of the course.”

To talk to someone about Toro technology and how the Toro range would suit your course, call 01480 226800.

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Capillary Bunkers solve elk damage

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Capillary Bunkers solve elk damage: Elk getting into bunkers has resulted in damage to them at Rock Creek Cattle Company in Montana, designed by architect Tom Doak. But lining the bunkers with the Capillary Bunker system is set to solve the problem.

“When the course was built, the bunkers were lined with a textile product,” says course superintendent Rick Hathaway. “Given the location, some sort of liner was essential. The clue is in the name: the soil here is full of rocks, from pebbles to big granite boulders. With frost heaves in winter, the rocks move up through the profile, and would penetrate unlined bunkers very easily.”

Capillary Bunkers solve elk damage

Capillary Bunkers solve elk damage

But the textile liner could not cope with another problem caused by Rock Creek’s location – wildlife. “We have a large herd of resident elk, about a thousand strong. And they really like our bunkers!” says Hathaway. “Their natural position is head up, so if they are down in a bunker, they have grass at head height. So it makes eating less work for them. Especially in the fall, when they come back out of the mountains, the elk spend a disproportionate amount of time in the bunkers. And they are big, heavy animals. Their hooves inevitably cause damage to a fabric liner, and once there is a little hole, the sand gets through and the situation starts to deteriorate. It got to the point where we couldn’t manage the amount of damage that was happening. I was using six or seven guys two days a week working on liners.”

And elk are not the only wildlife that caused Hathaway sleepless nights. “We have a lot of ground squirrels here and they burrow up through the bunkers. Then the badgers – which want to eat the ground squirrels – dig down after them, and the next morning we have huge holes in our bunkers,” he explains. “A couple of years ago, I went to my greens committee chairman – a committee of one! – and he asked me what keeps me awake at night. I told him and said ‘Let’s start thinking about redoing one day’. The course is a masterpiece and the bunkers weren’t doing it any favours. From a distance, they looked pretty but from a playability point of view they weren’t as good as the rest of the course. A couple of weeks later, he called me and said ‘It’s a go’.”

“I met the Capillary Bunkers rep and started having conversations with him, and I gave a couple of local superintendents a call. I went over to one that was doing a very large renovation of the course and went out for a day and watched them install the product. That gave me confidence in how it is installed and works. Last year, my greens chairman and I made the decision that Capillary Bunkers was the right choice. We did three test bunkers, evaluated different bunker sands, and made our decision.”

The project began in April, with construction being handled by contractor Ridgetop Golf, from Seattle, and the last bunkers were lined at the beginning of June. “We typically open the golf course on May 15, and April is the month I count on getting major course work done, so for the first six weeks of construction, there were no golfers around,” says Hathaway. “When we excavated the bunkers, I had the contractor scrape an inch or two out of the subgrade to make sure we didn’t change the depth.”

Hathaway is delighted with the results. “The bunkers are spectacular,” he says. “We have these jagged faces that have eroded in the thirteen years the course has been open, and that gives them even more character. There’s a little lip and the concrete fits in there. You’d never know there was concrete there.” Hopefully, the elk will concur!

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