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Golf Environment Awards Finalists Announced

November 13, 2018/in Events, Press Release/by Helen Waite

Golf Environment Awards Finalists Announced: STRI is delighted to announce the finalists for the 2019 Golf Environment Awards (GEAs), recognising golf clubs and individuals that strive to undertake environmental best practice. Over 30 longlisted clubs were visited earlier in the year by STRI ecology consultants, Bob Taylor and Rowan Rumball, and painstakingly whittled down to 17 finalists, including one […]

Grow Lights At The Allianz Arena

November 13, 2018/in Press Release, Sport/by Noortje van Loo

Grow Lights At The Allianz Arena: Although LED technology isn’t new, there haven’t been any sports surfaces grown on a large scale successfully with the help of LED light yet. After extensive research, development and testing, Allianz Arena are convinced they will now be the first, by using the SGL LED grow lighting system. Allianz Arena […]

Golf Environment Awards Finalists Announced

November 13, 2018/in Events, Press Release/by Helen Waite

Grow Lights At The Allianz Arena

November 13, 2018/in Press Release, Sport/by Noortje van Loo

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

Golf Environment Awards Finalists Announced

November 13, 2018/in Events, Press Release/by Helen Waite

Golf Environment Awards Finalists Announced: STRI is delighted to announce the finalists for the 2019 Golf Environment Awards (GEAs), recognising golf clubs and individuals that strive to undertake environmental best practice.

Over 30 longlisted clubs were visited earlier in the year by STRI ecology consultants, Bob Taylor and Rowan Rumball, and painstakingly whittled down to 17 finalists, including one club from Switzerland.

Four finalists have been named in three GEA categories – Conservation Greenkeeper of Year, Outstanding Environmental Project and Operation Pollinator. However, such was the competition in the Environmental Golf Course of Year category the shortlist has been increased to five finalists.

Representatives from the finalists will attend the glittering awards ceremony on 23 January at the Crown Hotel in Harrogate, during BTME week.

Golf Environment Awards judge, Rowan Rumball, said: “This is my first year managing the GEAs, and it has been a fantastic, but challenging, experience. It has been humbling and such a privilege to see first-hand all the good work golf clubs are striving to achieve.

“The range of projects has been massively diverse, and the scale is inspiring. Golf is truly leading the way when it comes to ecological and environmental commitment.”

The GEA provides the platform from which the golf industry can demonstrate environmental excellence in all its forms. This has been demonstrated by past finalists and can range from relatively simple but effective projects, to grand scale schemes.

All finalists receive free entry into the Foundation Award in Amenity Horticulture course, recognised by BASIS, as well as CPD points, and the lucky winners will be able to enjoy a European Golf & Environment Trip of a Lifetime to Portugal.

The Golf Environment Awards 2019 finalists are:

Environmental Golf Course of the Year

Aldeburgh Golf Club
Ipswich Golf Club
Minchinhampton Golf Club
Warrington Golf Club
St Andrews Links

Conservation Greenkeeper of the Year

Les Rae – Montrose Golf Links
Phil Stain – Notts Golf Club
Mark Broughton – Aldeburgh Golf Club
Neil Sherman – Ipswich Golf Club

Outstanding Environmental Project of the Year

Wylihof Golf Club
Cotswold Hills Golf Club
Hallamshire Golf Club
Woking Golf Club

Operation Pollinator

Wylihof Golf Club
Banchory Golf Club
Wigan Golf Club
Corhampton Golf Club

The winners will be announced at the Golf Environment Awards Ceremony on Wednesday 23^h January 2019, at The Crown Hotel in Harrogate. Tickets for the awards, which includes a three-course meal and drinks, go on general sale on 16 Nov. Please email enquiries@strigroup.com for further details.

STRI would like to thank all the golf clubs that entered but didn’t make the final shortlist.

A huge thank you also goes to Golf Environment Award partners and sponsors who continue to support and promote the awards year-on-year, without them the awards simply would not be possible.

The R&A, BIGGA, The Golf Club Manager, Tillers Turf, Ransomes Jacobsen, Wiedenmann, Aquatrols, Syngenta

For further details about The Golf Environment Awards please visit https://golfenvironmentawards.com/

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Grow Lights At The Allianz Arena

November 13, 2018/in Press Release, Sport/by Noortje van Loo

Allianz Arena have purchased four LED systems from SGL, with integrated and fully automatic Infrared Radiation and irrigation, which together cover the entire width of the pitch. Since 2009 Allianz Arena had successfully been using the conventional HPS* lighting units from SGL. Their ambitious sustainability goals were the reason to look into possibilities for a more sustainable grow lighting system. Jürgen Muth, Managing Director Allianz Arena: “In order to get and keep a perfect pitch with a very good natural grass quality, the use of technical support has already been essential to us for many years. SGL and their light technology have been a very important and helpful partner since 2009. Now we climb a new step and look forward to the new LED Lighting Units coming from SGL. After extensive tests we are confident to get good results with these additional lights on our pitch.“

SGL founder Nico van Vuuren explains the challenge of creating top quality growth with LED: “LED is a fast developing technology and a lot of research is still being done in regards to its use for plant growth. There are many choices to be made in order to get the same quality at lower costs as the HPS armatures. Apart from looking at the energy efficiency side of the story, it’s crucial to look at the plant physiological side, practical side and investment costs too. LED has many advantages, such as the flexibility in light spectrum and the energy efficiency, but also some challenges such as the high investment costs, the lack of Infrared Radiation and the weight.”

While many know LED for its sustainable character, another unique feature that LED has is the possibility to create a so-called ‘light recipe’. This means you can choose the colours of the light spectrum that are used by the plant for specific purposes. The success of an LED armature greatly depends on the right choice of colours. Van Vuuren: “Grass uses red and blue light for photosynthesis. We’ve extensively tested different red to blue ratios, at our own test centre in the Netherlands and at the Allianz Arena. Based on the test results we’ve created the most efficient light recipe for grass growth, recovery and plant resistance.”

One of the reasons that grass has not yet been grown successfully on a large scale with LED is the lack of additional heat. In Europe grow lights are generally used in winter, in times that there is not enough natural light for optimal plant growth and temperatures are low. This means that, besides additional light, the plant also needs extra heat in order to get quality growth. Van Vuuren: “HPS armatures radiate PAR light and Infrared light to the surface while LED radiates almost no heat to the surface. Therefore we have added Infrared Technology to the LED unit. Naturally, this means you lose some of the energy savings you have obtained by using LED. In order to minimize the extra energy input, our Infrared armatures automatically turn on and off to reach and maintain the ideal temperatures for grass growth. Whether the energy saving is still sufficient for a high ROI, depends on the many growth circumstances that a pitch is subject to. Therefore we always run pitch data through our light source efficiency model to determine which light source is most efficient for the specific playing surface. The Allianz Arena is very dark very early in the year, which means they start their lighting season relatively early when temperatures are still high. Therefore they can save a significant amount of energy, since there’s no infrared required at those times.”

The SGL LED system was tested along with other LED lighting units on the Allianz Arena pitch, to compare efficiency, quality and user friendliness of the system. The SGL LED grow lighting system has been able to tackle the challenges and achieve top quality, with a system that is affordable and easy operable by the grounds teams. The LED lighting units will be used along with the HPS systems, with the goal to phase-wise switch to all LED in the coming years.

For the latest industry news visit turfmatters.co.uk/news

Get all of the big headlines, pictures, opinions and videos on stories that matter to you.

Follow us on Twitter for fun, fresh and engaging content.

You can also find us on Facebook for more of your must-see news, features, videos and pictures from Turf Matters.

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Golf Environment Awards Finalists Announced

Grow Lights At The Allianz Arena

Golf Environment Awards Finalists Announced

Grow Lights At The Allianz Arena

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

Golf Environment Awards Finalists Announced

Grow Lights At The Allianz Arena

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