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Complete stadium branding solution

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Complete stadium branding solution: Scott MacCallum meets up with David Pritchard, Chief Commercial Officer for GroundWOW.

It was at Saltex in late 2019 that we first met. Neither of us had a crystal ball at the Show but 12 months on how is everyone at GroundWOW? Safe and well and finding a way to work…?

Amazing how quickly the year since Saltex has passed and I am pleased to report that we are in fantastic shape. As for our way of working, the team is well organised and ahead of the first lockdown, we put together a detailed plan that supported our transition to home working for as and when we’ve needed to.

Complete stadium branding solution

Complete stadium branding solution

The faith we had in our team and our processes through that period was paid back times over. Remote working during lockdown worked especially well on areas that sometimes struggle for airtime in a busy production setting.

That all sounds very positive. Does that mean you have you already reconciled the last 12 months and moved on?

Absolutely. Despite the many positives that occurred in GroundWOW during this difficult time, such as new products for the sports sector and in healthcare, I think we are all looking forward to moving on.

Looking back, what we ended up seeing was a split between organisations that were forced to wait for the pandemic ‘storm’ to pass versus others who had decided they would maintain business as usual as best they could. We saw two very different approaches to life “behind closed doors” and to be fair, both were entirely understandable. For anybody less familiar with our business, outside of core sports marking products, we manage a pipeline of development projects, some that we will deliver in to sport and others that leverage our modular technology and state of the art factory into other sectors. It is an approach we envisaged from the outset, endorsed and encouraged by our backers who are profoundly bought into the vision of our core autonomous robotic technology, and our wider RAAS (Robotics As A Service) offering. For them, that is all part of investing in a deep technology business. For us, it is this diversity of opportunity that minimises our exposure to any single sector.

Can you tell us any more about these other opportunities for your core technology?

Outside of sport, we are approached regularly with alternative use suggestions for GroundWOW’s multi-patented technology (now eight patents and counting!). A quick look through the newspapers and you can see that RAAS Technology businesses everywhere have continued to grow massively despite the pandemic.

In our case, it is easy to see how autonomous robotics might transition into transportation infrastructure or last mile delivery for example.

So, while our primary focus today is sport, it was our constant review of analogous markets that led us into discussions with the NHS in 2020. Appetite is all the way to the top of Government and as a result, we are delighted to have an offer currently under consideration for the whole of the Worldwide health care market.

Coming back to opportunity in sport, something we are regularly asked of our technology is, can it service any of our other wider needs. Well, I am pleased to exclusively announce that we’ll be unveiling something new for the sector very soon that will excite and delight everyone in sport – from the grounds crew to the Executive Board. As a self-sufficient manufacturer, we can take a project from the design phase to production readiness in literally a matter of days. But just because we can, doesn’t always mean that we will. Every idea must go via a rigorous research protocol to establish a meaningful strategic benefit, or otherwise.

How has the company grown over the last 12 months?

Commercially, we have continued to build relationships around the globe including with organisations who are either keen to deploy our technology or collaborate with us in their part of the world on one project or another. In the same way as so many others during the lockdown, we developed different ways to demonstrate our technology remotely, but hand on heart, I cannot wait to get back to more in person face to face conversations.

Team wise, we have recruited heavily over the last 12 months, building out a multi-national team of engineers and developers all based at our HQ, and we are still actively recruiting. The unwavering commitment to recruitment was also a clear signal to everybody else at GroundWOW that their livelihood was secure and the business still building proactively despite the biggest downturn in history.

Finally, with a larger team comes a larger space requirement and so we decided that we would accelerate our plans to create the Smart Factory we had envisioned from day one. We are thrilled with the result and the reactions from visitors. We occupy a large facility with an indoor test track in the middle and if you walked through the door today you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Silicon Valley rather than South Manchester.

World class teams deserve world class environments and we have taken huge steps in that direction to invest in our people and our customer journey.

Complete stadium branding solution

Complete stadium branding solution

The return of televised sport plays into your hands and I know you had big success at Cheltenham and Soccer Aid. Can you talk a little bit about those and some of the other major relationships you build during these difficult times?

Yes, Cheltenham and Soccer-Aid were like the book ends of a spring/summer period that is normally the prime time for sport in this country.

At Cheltenham, we installed for The Jockey Club’s headline sponsor (Magners) one week before the Festival and we ended up in lockdown a week after the actual event.

The Jockey Club were brilliant partners and hugely excited about new inventory facilitated by GroundWOW technology. As you might imagine, when you deliver an event of that profile, there is an inevitable spike in interest in the weeks and months that follow.

It was during Cheltenham week when Soccer Aid for UNICEF made their initial approach to ask if we would be interested to deliver pitch side branding for their main event sponsors at Old Trafford. As you now know, the original June date was postponed but we picked up in summer and delivered in September. Exactly like Cheltenham, delivering on a major stage like Old Trafford supercharges the level of inbound interest – but it is a nice problem considering these times of general uncertainty across the sector.

Relationship wise, our travel plans to certain parts of the world were put on hold. However, we found we were suddenly receiving a major level of interest from football. Typically, our discussions have been with proactive leaders looking for innovative logo and large-scale branding solutions to support their event delivery.

The other notable and enjoyable feature of our process is the sheer variety of discussions we are having with organisations who differ wildly in terms of available resources. Our technology is not cost-prohibitive and so we are able to engage prospects from all levels of sport.

What can you offer sporting events or sporting venues as revenue generating options during their televised/behind closed doors events?

This has always been the central proposition of GroundWOW, enabling a partner to drive revenue streams by printing sponsor brands and advertising logos on their real estate. Ie. sweating their asset. The main topics for discussion are either about selling pitchside real estate to matchday sponsors or in other cases, activating the pitch perimeter to drive added value for existing sponsors. We have all heard about spikes in TV audience figures and we know the value is always in fixed positions in front of the cameras.

That is what ground printed logos are.

The fact too that we run an autonomous vehicle and don’t rely on huge teams of people to carry out our work is also noteworthy given current stringent controls around stadium access.

What about opportunity outside of game day? You talk a lot about being a complete stadium solution, are these two elements related?

The main point here is that our conversations are not rooted in game day activations only. While conference and exhibition are largely stalled for now, non-game day brand activations are core GroundWOW opportunities.

In football for example, there may be 30 to 40 game days each year (depending on cup runs) but on the other 320 days, it is not uncommon for stadia owners to host multiple events every single day. In many cases, companies that hire out a venue are willing to pay for brand presence in incredible environments like stadia.

GroundWOW makes this possible, as the World’s first enterprise-wide ‘ground printer’ solution that literally anybody in the club can use. Not just the Grounds Team but also the marketing department, the sales department, the conference and exhibition team, and the charitable foundation. Teams have brought to us their own list of desired applications including end of season pitch days, stadium tours, car parks, media use, training grounds, concerts, wayfinding, grand scale art, product launches, partner films – that is what we mean when we talk about a complete stadium solution. Suddenly, the concept of a fully branded campus becomes a year-round reality.

For interested parties, what can they expect of a technology product business model?

Our business model is a really simple monthly subscription for Robot/ Software As A Service. Easiest analogy is a person’s mobile phone subscription. All relevant hardware and software are provided to the client including access to our full cloud infrastructure. How exciting is that?

You have grown the company significantly during the toughest economic downturn in our lifetime. What opportunities do you see for yourselves when we do get back to some sort of normality – whether that be in 2021 or heaven forbid, beyond that?

We feel good about where we are but we are sensitive to the proper process of emerging from lockdown safely. When the time is right, we’ll operationalise our growth plan further in sports marking and whole campus activation and we will also open offices this year in Australia and the United States. In the meantime, our new products in sport and healthcare, will continue to build value for us.

As history has shown, lots of innovative businesses have emerged and thrived as the result of a downturn exposing a need for things to change. We are looking forward with great optimism to whatever 2021 has in store. Watch this space.

The Complete Stadium Branding Solution

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The Complete Stadium Branding Solution: Interview with David Pritchard, Chief Commercial Officer (david@groundwow.com)

It was at Saltex in late 2019 that we first met. Neither of us had a crystal ball at the Show but 12 months on how is everyone at GroundWOW? Safe and well and finding a way to work…?

Amazing how quickly the year since Saltex has passed and I am pleased to report that we are in fantastic shape. As for our way of working, the team is well organised and ahead of the first lockdown, we put together a detailed plan that supported our transition to home working for as and when we’ve needed to. The faith we had in our team and our processes through that period was paid back times over. Remote working during lockdown worked especially well on areas that sometimes struggle for airtime in a busy production setting.

The Complete Stadium Branding Solution

The Complete Stadium Branding Solution

That all sounds very positive. Does that mean you have you already reconciled the last twelve months and moved on?

Absolutely. Despite the many positives that occurred in GroundWOW during this difficult time, such as new products for the sports sector and in healthcare, I think we are all looking forward to moving on. Looking back, what we ended up seeing was a split between organisations that were forced to wait for the pandemic ‘storm’ to pass versus others who had decided they would maintain business as usual as best they could. We saw two very different approaches to life “behind closed doors” and to be fair, both were entirely understandable.

For anybody less familiar with our business, outside of core sports marking products, we manage a pipeline of development projects, some that we will deliver in to sport and others that leverage our modular technology and state of the art factory into other sectors. It is an approach we envisaged from the outset, endorsed and encouraged by our backers who are profoundly bought into the vision of our core autonomous robotic technology, and our wider RAAS (Robotics As A Service) offering. For them, that is all part of investing in a deep technology business. For us, it is this diversity of opportunity that minimises our exposure to any single sector.

Can you tell us any more about these other opportunities for your core technology?

Outside of sport, we are approached regularly with alternative use suggestions for GroundWOW’s multi-patented technology (now 8 patents and counting!). A quick look through the newspapers and you can see that RAAS Technology businesses everywhere have continued to grow massively despite the pandemic. In our case, it is easy to see how autonomous robotics might transition into transportation infrastructure or last mile delivery for example.  So, while our primary focus today is sport, it was our constant review of analogous markets that led us into discussions with the NHS in 2020. Appetite is all the way to the top of Government and as a result, we are delighted to have an offer currently under consideration for the whole of the Worldwide health care market.

Coming back to opportunity in sport, something we are regularly asked of our technology is, can it service any of our other wider needs. Well, I am pleased to exclusively announce that we’ll be unveiling something new for the sector very soon that will excite and delight everyone in sport – from the grounds crew to the Executive Board. As a self-sufficient manufacturer, we can take a project from the design phase to production readiness in literally a matter of days. But just because we can, doesn’t always mean that we will. Every idea must go via a rigorous research protocol to establish a meaningful strategic benefit, or otherwise.

The Complete Stadium Branding Solution

The Complete Stadium Branding Solution

How has the company grown over the last 12 months?

Commercially, we have continued to build relationships around the globe including with organisations who are either keen to deploy our technology or collaborate with us in their part of the world on one project or another. In the same way as so many others during the lockdown, we developed different ways to demonstrate our technology remotely, but hand on heart, I cannot wait to get back to more in person face to face conversations.

Team wise, we have recruited heavily over twelve months, building out a multi-national team of engineers and developers all based at our HQ, and we are still actively recruiting. The unwavering commitment to recruitment was also a clear signal to everybody else at GroundWOW that their livelihood was secure and the business still building proactively despite the biggest downturn in history.

Finally, with a larger team comes a larger space requirement and so we decided that we would accelerate our plans to create the Smart Factory we had envisioned from day one. We are thrilled with the result and the reactions from visitors. We occupy a large facility with an indoor test track in the middle and if you walked through the door today you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Silicon Valley rather than South Manchester. World class teams deserve world class environments and we have taken huge steps in that direction to invest in our people and our customer journey.

The Complete Stadium Branding Solution

The Complete Stadium Branding Solution

The return of televised sport plays into your hands and I know you had big success at Cheltenham and Soccer Aid. Can you talk a little bit about those and some of the other major relationships you build during these difficult times?

Yes, Cheltenham and Soccer-Aid were like the book ends of a Spring Summer period that is normally the prime time for sport in this country. At Cheltenham, we installed for The Jockey Club’s headline sponsor (Magners) one week before the Festival and we ended up in lockdown a week after the actual event. The Jockey Club were brilliant partners and hugely excited about new inventory facilitated by GroundWOW technology. As you might imagine, when you deliver an event of that profile, there is an inevitable spike in interest in the weeks and months that follow.

It was during Cheltenham week when Soccer Aid for Unicef made their initial approach to ask if we would be interested to deliver pitch side branding for their main event sponsors at Old Trafford. As you now know, the original June date was postponed but we picked up in summer and delivered in September. Exactly like Cheltenham, delivering on a major stage like Old Trafford supercharges the level of inbound interest – but it is a nice problem considering these times of general uncertainty across the sector.

Relationship wise, our travel plans to certain parts of the world were put on hold. However, we found we were suddenly receiving a major level of interest from football. Typically, our discussions have been with proactive leaders looking for innovative logo and large-scale branding solutions to support their event delivery. The other notable and enjoyable feature of our process is the sheer variety of discussions we are having with organisations who differ wildly in terms of available resources. Our technology is not cost-prohibitive and so we are able to engage prospects from all levels of sport.

What can you offer sporting events or sporting venues as revenue generating options during their televised / behind closed doors events?

This has always been the central proposition of GroundWOW, enabling a partner to drive revenue streams by printing sponsor brands and advertising logos on their real estate. i.e. sweating their asset. The main topics for discussion are either about selling pitchside real estate to matchday sponsors or in other cases, activating the pitch perimeter to drive added value for existing sponsors. We have all heard about spikes in TV audience figures and we know the value is always in fixed positions in front of the cameras. That is what ground printed logos are. The fact too that we run an autonomous vehicle and don’t rely on huge teams of people to carry out our work is also noteworthy given current stringent controls around stadium access.

The Complete Stadium Branding Solution

The Complete Stadium Branding Solution

What about opportunity outside of game day? You talk a lot about being a complete stadium solution, are these two elements related?

The main point here is that our conversations are not rooted in game day activations only. Whilst conference and exhibition are largely stalled for now, non-game day brand activations are core GroundWOW opportunities. In football for example, there may be thirty to forty game days each year (depending on cup runs) but on the other three hundred and twenty days, it is not uncommon for stadia owners to host multiple events every single day. In many cases, companies that hire out a venue are willing to pay for brand presence in incredible environments like stadia.

GroundWOW makes this possible as the World’s first enterprise-wide ‘ground printer’ solution that literally anybody in the club can use. Not just the Grounds Team but also the marketing department, the sales department, the conference and exhibition team, and the charitable foundation. Teams have brought to us their own list of desired applications including end of season pitch days, stadium tours, car parks, media use, training grounds, concerts, wayfinding, grand scale art, product launches, partner films – that is what we mean when we talk about a complete stadium solution. Suddenly, the concept of a fully branded campus becomes a year-round reality.

For interested parties, what can they expect of a technology product business model?

Our business model is a really simple monthly subscription for Robot/Software As A Service. Easiest analogy is a person’s mobile phone subscription. All relevant hardware and software are provided to the client including access to our full cloud infrastructure. How exciting is that?

You have grown the company significantly during the toughest economic downturn in our lifetime. What opportunities do you see for yourselves when we do get back to some sort of normality – whether that be in 2021 or heaven forbid, beyond that?

We feel good about where we are but we are sensitive to the proper process of emerging from lockdown safely. When the time is right, we’ll operationalise our growth plan further in sports marking and whole campus activation and we will also open offices this year in Australia and the United States. In the meantime, our new products in sport and healthcare, will continue to build value for us.

As history has shown, lots of innovative businesses have emerged and thrived as the result of a downturn exposing a need for things to change. We are looking forward with great optimism to whatever 2021 has in store.  Watch this space.

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

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Colliers advisors complete fertiliser assessment

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Colliers advisors complete fertiliser assessment: All of our Collier Turf Care FACTS Qualified Advisors (FQA) have again successfully passed the fertiliser annual assessment examination.

Along with their BASIS qualification and membership of the BASIS Professional Register, this ensures that they are up to date and able to offer sound professional advice on both chemicals and fertilisers for the turf and amenity industry, and entitles them to remain on the register of FACTS Qualified Advisors. Those staff that are not currently BASIS registered or FACTS Qualified Advisors are undergoing our in-depth formal training scheme, and until qualified they are fully supported by the companies FQAs.

Colliers advisors complete fertiliser assessment

Colliers advisors complete fertiliser assessment

Andrew Harding, Managing Director of Collier Turf Care said “We are committed to ensuring that our staff are fully trained and competent in order that we can deliver the very best advice and service to our customers. As the leading technical turf care company, we fully endorse the principles of professional qualifications and raising the standards throughout the amenity industry”.

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Associates complete 72 holes in one day

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Associates complete 72 holes in one day: In November, three teams of Troon associates and two member teams completed every single hole of golf in the Troon Abu Dhabi portfolio in one day to raise awareness for Prostate Cancer & Men’s Health. To date, the team have raised AED 10,947 for the chosen charity, Friends of Cancer Patients & Shanab.

The Friends of Cancer Patients charity (FOCP) is a non-profit organization supporting cancer patients since 1999. The FOCP was founded under the directives and patronage of Her Highness Sheika Jawaher bint Mohammed Al Qasimi and is highly committed to helping cancer patients and their families get through the long and arduous journey of cancer treatment irrespective of their nationality, gender, age, religion or ethnicity.

Associates complete 72 holes in one day

Associates complete 72 holes in one day

The fifteen golfers completed rounds at the three Abu Dhabi championship venues; Abu Dhabi Golf Club, Saadiyat Beach Golf Club, Yas Links Abu Dhabi. For the final round they played the 9-hole ‘Garden Course’ and took advantage of the floodlights at the at Abu Dhabi Golf Club to finish under darkness.

The Troon associate challengers comprised of Francisco de Lancastre David, Cluster General Manager; Clinton Southorn, Complex Director of Agronomy; Matthew Waters, Group Director of Golf; Danny Jakubowski, Group Director of Instruction; Daniel Wright, Cluster Senior Sales & Marketing Manager; James Durkin, Group Retail Manager; Barry Barnard, ADGC Tournament Coordinator; Daniel Richards, SBGC Tournament Coordinator; and Bradley Hudson, YLAD Golf Shop Associate.

Francisco de Lancastre David commented: “We’re all exceptionally grateful to take part in this charity initiative for the first time at Troon Abu Dhabi. It was a long day but I’m proud of the team supporting each other and raising vital funds for the Friends of Cancer Patients charity. Cancer is certainly something that unfortunately will have affected us all in some capacity so it means a lot to support an incredible charity like FOCP who have committed to going above and beyond to help cancer patients and their support systems.”

To support the team and donate to Friends of Cancer Patients, please click here.

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21 complete Jacobsen’s 2020 Initiative

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21 complete Jacobsen’s 2020 Initiative: Twenty-one turf professionals from across the UK and Ireland have completed the 2020 Future Turf Managers Initiative (FTMI) at Jacobsen’s Ipswich headquarters.

The intensive three-day event is focused on providing future turf managers with the skills and confidence to manage people and progress their careers, with 33% of candidates moving on to managerial positions over the seven years the initiative has been running.

21 complete Jacobsen’s 2020 Initiative

21 complete Jacobsen’s 2020 Initiative

In association with BIGGA, the course uses professional trainers and mentors to provide the practical tools and guidance needed, including communicating a professional image, conflict resolution and building budgets.

Mentors for this year’s initiative were Craig Haldane, Andrew Laing, Steve Lloyd and James Bledge. In 2017, James became the first candidate to return as a mentor and, having experienced the initiative from both sides, views the FTMI as a unique opportunity to learn vital management skills.

“There are so many brilliant volunteering programmes, but the FTMI is different because it is proper management learning,” he explained. “It’s intense as well, it’s seven o’clock in the morning to ten at night, it’s non-stop, and it does subject you to proper hard work and proper hard learning in a classroom environment.

“When you go from being a deputy or greenkeeper to course manager, managing people is your biggest shock. The agronomy side of it is twenty percent, and the management is eighty. If you’re making that transition, then it’s a big bump down to earth because there are so many banana skins out there and managing people is difficult.

“Everything you get taught is beneficial, there’s no grey areas or bad parts of it, you’ve got to be engaged the whole time and not miss anything because it’s all important. There’s nothing that’s more important than anything else because you’ll deal with every single part of it.”

Because the initiative covers a range of topics, it allows individual candidates to take different things from it. Zoe Lee-Amies, greenkeeper at Felixstowe Ferry Golf Club, applied to the course to increase her confidence and has already benefited from what she has learnt.

“The reason I applied to come to the FTMI as a majority of people on the course have expressed is confidence – confidence to talk in front of people. It’s already helped give me the tools to cope with it. I find myself needing cue cards, so now I know that where ever I go and whatever I do I can have that, that’s how I can outline bits and pieces. The coping mechanisms like squeezing the ball, pressing your hand on the table or holding my cue card really hard – those are great learning tips, and I’ve got a lot out of it so far.

“But, predominantly for myself, it was conflict resolution, and how to talk to people, how to get information out of them and out of myself. To be able to meet in the middle like we’ve been discussing and it’s only when you’re here that you start to reflect on yourself and others. You realise that it’s a learning opportunity of yourself, it’s a mirror for yourself and I’ve really enjoyed it.”

Gemma St John, first assistant at Brokenhurst Manor Golf Club, also values the self-reflection the course offers, but like Zoe, has found the communication side invaluable for old fashioned attitudes she unfortunately still has to face as a female greenkeeper.

21 complete Jacobsen’s 2020 Initiative

21 complete Jacobsen’s 2020 Initiative

Gemma explained: “I applied mostly for confidence to try and deal with the older generation. I did a talk at the BCA College in front of greenkeepers from the ages of 16-19 and the question they asked me was ‘why do you find it hard in greenkeeping? You’re just a greenkeeper.’ And I explained that they’ve learnt in this day and age that we’re all equal, but what you’ve got to remember is 40 years ago we weren’t. So, talking to you guys was lovely, but I’ve now got to go and talk to members who think ‘how can you lift that, how can you use a chain saw, you can’t do what he can do.’

“With the FTMI, hopefully, my conversations with them will be more positive and not have that shaky voice where I do feel a bit intimidated by them. Now I know how to process the questions they’ve asked me and answer them in a more confident way by using the strategies that we’ve learnt here.”

Providing candidates with skills they can use immediately is an essential part of what is on offer over the three days, and Jack Percival, deputy course manager at Chipstead Golf Club, already has plans on sharing what he’s learnt to benefit his team.

“I’ve applied for the FTMI three years running and didn’t get it, so I wanted to take full advantage of it and take as much information as I can from the mentors and use it with my team.

“I’ve already thought of ways that I can go back and use what I’ve learnt. Because I’m quite confident and good at presentations, I’m already thinking of how I can help the team back at work and get them to channel their energy and help them with their presentation skills. We’ve got a few guys on our team who are fantastic guys, but they’re a bit shy, and I want to help them come out of their shell using what I’ve learnt.”

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Jacobsen at The Lensbury

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Jacobsen the complete package for The Lensbury: Multipurpose venues need quality, versatile and reliable mowers. And that’s why The Lensbury opted for the Jacobsen TR320 and GP400.

The four-star club, hotel and conference centre sits on the banks of the River Thames in Teddington, London, and hosts international rugby teams as well as professional club sides. There are also six grass tennis courts and ornamental gardens in the grounds of the hotel, all of which are kept to an impeccable standard by head of grounds and gardens, Peter Craig, and his team.

Jacobsen the complete package for The Lensbury

The rugby pitches are an essential part of The Lensbury. They attract the world’s best and need to look and play to their standards, so when the decision was made to get a new mower, Peter decided to trial every machine at his disposal before going for the TR320.

“I took a long time choosing the rugby mower because those pitches are the priority here from a turf management point of view, and that’s why we tried virtually everything before we made a choice,” Peter explained. “The quality of cut on the TR320 is good as is the adjustment of cut, and I’m glad that I made the choice I did.

“Price is obviously important, and the TR320 was competitive in that area. I looked at the Jacobsen and all the main mower brands. We were looking at all of the usual criteria, the quality of cut, the range of cut, the comfort, the noise and the width of the machine. The size of the boxes was another aspect I looked at because I wanted the biggest boxes possible to reduce the amount of time spent emptying them.

“Those were the main things along with the ease of use because we wanted it to be operator friendly. The back-up service is obviously a big part of it as well, and I’d never bought a Jacobsen before, so I didn’t know what it was like. When we’ve needed them, parts have arrived very quickly, and the service from Ernest Doe has been excellent.”

The TR320 is the perfect choice for The Lensbury because of its quality of cut, operator comfort and vertically folding units. The 1.83m cutting width can be reduced to a 1.63m transport width, with the reels lifting to a vertical position to make driving around tight areas, such as ornamental gardens, simple.

Although the pitches are the priority, the ornamental gardens and grass tennis courts are also paid close attention. While Peter’s mower criteria for this area was similar in terms of quality of cut and productivity, the need for a machine that could handle attachments was paramount for other maintenance.

For this, the GP400 was his mower of choice. It gets used to cut the ornamental lawns during the cutting season and for verti-cutting the tennis courts during the season, at the end of the season and during winter. Peter has high praise for the swing-out centre reel for making a “massive difference” when it comes to maintenance, and the ‘great’ quality of cut.

That great quality of cut comes from the TrueSet cutting units that allow operators to easily adjust the mower to ensure it has the optimum reel to bedknife setting, giving the perfect cut every time.

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

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Complete DLF Range At Goodwood

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Complete DLF Range At Goodwood: The Goodwood Estate relies on mixtures from across the DLF Seeds portfolio to deliver results site-wide. With a remit including two 18-hole golf courses, a cricket ground, gardens and farmland, a grass airfield, and a motor circuit, General Manager of Sports Turf & Grounds, Phil Helmn, is certainly kept busy with such a momentous breadth of surfaces to prepare.

Joining the Goodwood Estate four years ago, from a greenkeeping background, has seen a steep but fascinating learning curve for Phil – “everyone says it, but in this job no two days really are the same!  One day me, and anyone of my full-time grounds team of 35, could be working on golf course renovations, or the next coordinating ground preparations for Goodwood’s Festival of Speed which has an attendance equal to that of Glastonbury Festival!  What’s really interesting is how every environment has such different performance criteria so I’ve taken a lot of guidance and advice from companies and distributors, DLF being one of them.”

Complete DLF Range At Goodwood

As a long-standing user of seed from DLF’s Masterline and Johnsons Sports Seed mixtures, introducing those across the estate was one of Phil’s first exercises. “Ryegrass is the primary species used across the estate because of its hardwearing qualities and quick germination making it suitable on a wide variety of sports and fine turf areas. On our cricket wicket, Johnsons J Premier Wicket mixture has been working really well.”

Johnsons J Premier Wicket features a four-cultivar blend of Clementine, Monroe, Dickens and Chardin perennial ryegrass and delivers outstanding shoot density, rapid establishment and high disease resistance. In terms of its usage, Goodwood’s cricket ground has seen a surge in popularity, which is driving investment into the facilities later this year. “We currently host lots of local league matches but developments on one of the wickets will hopefully see that prepared to a higher spec with the J Premier Wicket, along with a £1m new pavilion, in the hope of heading towards county level play.”

Complete DLF Range At Goodwood

“On our golf greens, we’re currently on a bent grass overseeding programme and over on the grass airfield, which has a resident academy of three Spitfires, we’re using the hard-wearing ProMaster 70 mixture from Masterline. With so many sports arenas, there’s always new challenges, and peaks and troughs in demand, which keeps you on your toes. The seed from DLF gives us one constant we can rely on.”

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Allett’s Complete Lawncare System

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Allett’s Complete Lawncare System: Whilst we’re all hoping the Beast From The East, The Pest From The West and any other cold weather extremes are far behind us, take a moment to consider their impact of such conditions on your lawn.

There is a direct correlation between grass growth and ground temperature, and the extreme lows followed by recent highs will have grass growing incredibly well. The downside to this, however, is that the chances of moss and weeds also growing have increased.

Allett's Complete Lawncare System

Dealing with these problems, and creating the perfect lawn, takes both time and patience so it is vital to use the correct equipment, and at the correct time. Buying various pieces of equipment can be costly and problematic, particularly for those where storage space is at a premium. The unique Complete Lawncare System from Allett could be the answer.

The Complete Lawncare System features six interchangeable cartridges that fit on to Allett’s Kensington petrol mowers and Liberty 43 battery powered mowers. The system transforms the machine from a traditional mower to a specialist gardening tool simply by changing its cartridges. The system includes an aerator, a lawn brush, dethatcher, verticutter and a 10-bladed cartridge, as well as the walk-behind cylinder lawnmower, all in one machine which eases storage issues and reduces costs.

Scarifying is a key way to ensuring your lawn is healthy and gloriously green throughout the summer and is a particularly good way of repairing it after the recent cold weather spells. The Allett scarifier cartridge gently removes moss and thatch, whilst also reduces weeds and prevents problems in the future. For lawns with severe problems and thick growth of dead matter, an alternative cartridge in the system to use is the dethatcher.

For more than 50 years, Allett has specialised in the design and manufacture of precision, single-cylinder, walk-behind mowers that produce a quintessentially striped lawn. The homeowner range are leaders within their various market sectors providing users with expertly-built, reliable, well-proven grass-cutting reel mowers which produce a seemingly effortless first-class finish to every lawn on which they are used.

All of the cartridges are available from Allett’s UK wide network of specialist independent garden machinery dealers. Lawn mower prices start from £429.

For further information visit www.allett.co.uk.

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