New Zealand greenkeepers return

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New Zealand greenkeepers return: Mowers started up for the first time in three weeks on Tuesday at many of New Zealand’s 400 golf courses.

Greenkeepers returned “just in time”, with some facing overgrown roughs and disease encroaching on the greens.

The Government gave the all-clear for golf course maintenance to resume, following lobbying from those in the golfing community. The stipulation from the Ministry of Primary Industries, which applies to bowling and croquet greens and nurseries, is that the maintenance must be urgent.

The upkeep of golf courses is a daily task, and if maintenance were delayed further, it could have a million-dollar impact, said Remuera golf club superintendent and NZ Golf Superintendents Association board member Spencer Cooper.

“We’ve got back to work just in time. It’s essential we maintain the properties so we’ve got something to go back to,” he said.

“Delaying… there would be tens of millions of dollars worth of damage.

“A lot of golf courses wouldn’t survive and it would result in a lot of people losing their jobs unncessarily.”

Cooper arrived on Tuesday to find “really nasty” fungal disease starting to appear on the greens. Some diseases can spread “extremely quickly” and wipe out entire greens within 48 to 72 hours.

“For the golf courses that do financially survive, the damage could be quite severe which would cost a lot of money to repair,” he said.

“It would keep the golf courses that do survive closed for longer and it would take longer for people to get back to playing golf.”

Golf is one of the most popular sports in the country, with more than half a million players picking up the golf clubs in the last 12 months.

Cooper’s club has a membership of 1600, and has more than 60,000 rounds of golf per year.

While Cooper is sceptical about the sport resuming in the next few weeks, he said golf offers an opportunity for exercise while in isolation.

“I believe people can go and play golf, in pretty much isolation, out in nature, get a bit of exercise, getting a bit of sunshine, without coming across too many other people,” he said.

“If we do it properly we believe we’re one of the few sports that can really be viable when others can’t…[and] there’s a huge mental health benefit.”

For now, he and his team are happy to be out on the course, also working on their mental health.

“This something extremely therapeutic about mowing grass and the smell of it… it was amazing,” he laughed.

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Well-being Wednesday: what is stress?

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Well-being Wednesday: what is stress?: We all know what it’s like to feel stressed, but it’s not easy to pin down exactly what stress means. When we say things like “this is stressful” or “I’m stressed”, we might be talking about:

  • Situations or events that put pressure on us – for example, times where we have lots to do and think about, or don’t have much control over what happens.
  • Our reaction to being placed under pressure – the feelings we get when we have demands placed on us that we find difficult to cope with.
Well-being Wednesday: what is stress?

Well-being Wednesday: what is stress?

There’s no medical definition of stress, and health care professionals often disagree over whether stress is the cause of problems or the result of them. This can make it difficult for you to work out what causes your feelings of stress, or how to deal with them. But whatever your personal definition of stress is, it’s likely that you can learn to manage your stress better by:

  • managing external pressures, so stressful situations don’t seem to happen to you quite so often
  • developing your emotional resilience, so you’re better at coping with tough situations when they do happen and don’t feel quite so stressed

Is stress a mental health problem?

Being under pressure is a normal part of life. It can help you take action, feel more energised and get results. But if you often become overwhelmed by stress, these feelings could start to be a problem for you.

Stress isn’t a psychiatric diagnosis, but it’s closely linked to your mental health in two important ways:

  • Stress can cause mental health problems, and make existing problems worse. For example, if you often struggle to manage feelings of stress, you might develop a mental health problem like anxiety or depression.
  • Mental health problems can cause stress. You might find coping with the day-to-day symptoms of your mental health problem, as well as potentially needing to manage medication, heath care appointments or treatments, can become extra sources of stress.

This can start to feel like a vicious circle, and it might be hard to see where stress ends and your mental health problem begins.

Why does stress affect me physically?

You might find that your first clues about being stressed are physical signs, such as tiredness, headaches or an upset stomach.

There could be many reasons for this, as when we feel stressed we often find it hard to sleep or eat well, and poor diet and lack of sleep can both affect our physical health. This in turn can make us feel more stressed emotionally.

Also, when we feel anxious, our bodies release hormones called cortisol and adrenaline. (This is the body’s automatic way of preparing to respond to a threat, sometimes called the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response). If you’re often stressed then you’re probably producing high levels of these hormones, which can make you feel physically unwell and could affect your health in the longer term.

www.mind.org.uk

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Plymouth pay NHS tribute

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Plymouth pay NHS tribute: Plymouth have paid tribute to the NHS with a special decoration of their Home Park pitch.

The League Two club got their head groundsman Chris Ralph to work with the mower, cutting a pattern reading “Thank You NHS” into the turf.

Plymouth had already handed their stadium over to the local NHS Trust, who are using it for phlebotomy and antenatal appointments during the coronavirus pandemic.

A club statement released to the PA news agency said: “The club is proud to have worked in partnership with the local NHS Trust at the earliest possible opportunity – handing over our stadium to be used for routine phlebotomy and antenatal appointments.

“We feel a civic duty to support our local community at this time, and the pattern on the pitch was cut by grounds staff to show our immense gratitude for our NHS heroes, working at Home Park and further afield, during this time of crisis.”

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Together, we’ll beat coronavirus

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Together, we’ll beat coronavirus: We at Turf Matters are well aware of the impact Coronavirus is having on every aspect of our lives.

It is something that has not been faced by any of us in our lifetimes.

Together, we’ll beat coronavirus

Together, we’ll beat coronavirus

We are all trying to get through the next few weeks and months as best as we can. Keeping working, if we are at all able to, helps retain some sort of normality in what are anything but normal times.

We are a small, close-knit industry which is good in so many ways. We always have someone to call on while help is always there when needed. In other ways it is not so good however. Being small makes us more vulnerable and we can lack the resources which help bigger industries cushion themselves through hard times. It can be a hand to mouth existence, something we’ve seen when weather extremes have impacted on various elements of our industry.

It all means we must stick together wherever possible. For that reason we at Turf Matters are giving a shout out to all our partnering companies.

We wish you all well over the difficult times ahead. You can be assured that Turf Matters will be with you, side by side, through it all.

We not only have our health to protect but our futures and we will provide all the help we can to showcase the work you continue to do and perhaps shine a light on the wonderful, often behind the scenes acts of kindness for which our great industry is known.

Let’s take care, let’s stay well, let’s stick together, let’s get through this.

Scott MacCallum, editor

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Inverallan expands Pellenc fleet

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Inverallan expands Pellenc fleet: Inverallan Landscapes has taken one step further in its quest to become fossil fuel free by expanding its Pellenc portfolio with the purchase of two Rasion Easy self-propelled mowers and a set of Airion blowers.

Step by step, Inverallan Landscapes, a gardening and grounds maintenance contracting business in Stirling, is changing the way it does business. By integrating battery-operated equipment and reducing its carbon footprint, it hopes to offer customers a completely ‘clean’ service – according to managing director John Maxwell.

Inverallan expands Pellenc fleet

Inverallan expands Pellenc fleet

“We want to be the first landscape contractors that operate battery-only, so during the past three years we have been upgrading our tools and equipment to the equivalent battery models, as well as installing solar panels at our business unit,” he said.

The company first became acquainted with Pellenc equipment back in 2018 after purchasing a set of Helion 2 Compact hedge trimmers – the lightest battery-powered hedge trimmer on the market. After reporting excellent results, it continued to invest in Pellenc equipment and two years later, Inverallan Landscapes now boasts an impressive portfolio which includes chainsaws, blowers, hedge cutters, pole saws, road sweepers, grass strimmers and mowers.

The company’s most recent Pellenc additions were prompted after it was awarded a new contract in which a dedicated maintenance team would be working for a large housing association with over 1000 properties.

According to John, the zero-emission approach made total sense.

“To my knowledge this may well be the first maintenance team in Scotland to be 100% environmentally friendly so we are making huge strides. Not only will they solely be using the Pellenc equipment to maintain the houses and grounds, but they will also be using a brand-new Nissan E-NV200 electric powered van.

“It ticks every box – from the machinery point of view, the operator’s point of view and also from the residents’ point of view. There are just so many benefits from using the Pellenc equipment.”

Light, odourless, noise-free, with no starting problems and enough power to enable professional users to work for a full day on a single charge, it’s no wonder more and more professional users are turning to Pellenc. It is an attractive alternative to those who have, for a number of years, been relying on fuel-based machinery.

Not only will users see a huge amount of savings by eliminating the necessity of purchasing fuel but by using the Pellenc equipment, they will be contributing to protecting the environment by reducing the consumption of fossil fuels and noise pollution.

“The team much prefer using the Pellenc equipment compared to the two-stroke products,” John continued. “It is far more lightweight, so they are less fatigued while working, there are no fumes and the equipment is so quiet. You particularly notice the benefits in those long, hot summer days.

“You also don’t have the issue of maintenance or parts going wrong in comparison to traditional two or four stroke equipment – such as spark plugs, air filters or oil changes. With the Pellenc equipment you just push a button and off you go.”

John saved particular praise for Rasion mower, claiming that it has enhanced the team’s grass cutting operations: “It’s a brilliant machine and it has more advantages than a traditional petrol mower. Firstly, it is so much lighter and from our point of view up here in Scotland, with the amount of rain we have, the ground can quite often be saturated. If you go onto that ground with a petrol mower, you are adding a lot of weight and you find yourself sinking into the ground. With the Rasion mower we have been able to get onto those saturated grounds and we have been able to tend to grass that we might not have previously been able to cut.”

“The other benefit is that it is wider than most petrol mowers, so we find ourselves cutting faster and covering more ground in a shorter amount of time.”

Inverallan Landscapes purchased the equipment from Agrovista Amenity in Stirling, and Allan Wright, amenity specialist for Agrovista, said: “It’s great to see that Inverallan Landscapes is revolutionising its approach to service provision through the introduction of battery-operated equipment.

“With Pellenc tools, there’s no compromise on performance, and users benefit from long-term cost savings, reduced noise and operator vibration.

“All Pellenc tools come with a three-year commercial warranty and batteries benefit from the new improved four-year commercial warranty. I believe the future is in the use of battery equipment and the new technological developments from Pellenc are certainly leading the way.”

Pellenc is exclusively distributed in the UK and Ireland by Etesia UK.

For further information, please contact Etesia UK on 01295 680120 or visit www.pellencuk.com

You can also follow Pellenc on Twitter and Instagram @PellencUK for much more news, reviews and insightful views.

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