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Save time, money and effort with Attraxor®

Save time, money and effort with Attraxor®: In real terms, this can mean less frequent mowing, saving manpower, petrol, and associated machinery costs. The risks associated with mowing difficult or dangerous areas such as steep banks are also reduced.

Head Greenkeeper, Alan McWilliam, based at Portpatrick Dunskey Golf Club in southwest Scotland, has been using Attraxor® for the past 12 months on golf greens.

Save time, money and effort with Attraxor®

Save time, money and effort with Attraxor®

Alan said: “Once applied I was really impressed with the reduction of turf growth. It has made the management of the course so much easier, reducing the amount of maintenance required.”

By using Attraxor®, growth is redirected from vertical to horizontal, increasing the density of turf. It also causes the thickening of plant cell walls and epidermis, contributing to a reduced susceptibility to some turf diseases with its regular use.

Course Manager, Ronnie Montgomery, based at Loudoun Gowf Club in Galston also said that he has been using Attraxor for the last 12 months on golf greens and has noticed a marked difference in the quality of the playing surface.

Ronnie confirmed: “We have noticed a better playing surface. Turf density has improved along with it being easier to maintain consistent greens speeds. We have also noticed this year a reduction in Microdochium.”

To find out more about Attraxor®, visit https://www.agricentre.basf.co.uk/en/Products/Product-Search/Plant-Growth-Regulator/Attraxor.html.

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Saving money from day one

Saving money from day one: Kyle Swart, superintendent of the Oakwing club in Louisiana, estimates he will save up to $85,000 a year from his new Capillary Bunkers.

“When we had a tournament, before we redid the bunkers, our biggest fear was rain in the days before the event,” says Kyle Swart, superintendent at the semi-private Oakwing course in Louisiana. “If it rained on a Friday and the tournament was on a Saturday, the bunkers would be ground under repair. If the rain came a few days before, my crew would have to spend all their time putting the bunkers back toghether when they should have been preparing the course.”

Saving money from day one

Saving money from day one

Located on Heritage Park in Alexandria, central Lousiana, the former England Airforce Basem, the home of the 23rd Fighter Wing, Oakwing was designed by Jim Lipe and opened in 2001. “There isn’t any real military installation here any more, but the England Air Authority owns the land and manages the property,” says Swart. “About 75 per cent of our play is from members.”

The course’s bunkers – which are large, with steep faces – had never been properly renovated since opening. “We tried to do our own bunker liner, using concrete, about ten years ago, but it failed,” says Swart. “There were fabric liners installed originally, but they were never going to last twenty years, and before we renovated, we would pull some up with the Sand Pro every now and again.”

Swart researched the options available to him and settled on the Capillary Bunkers product from Capillary Flow. “I didn’t know when there might be another renovation, so decided I had to go for the best long-term option,” he says. “What I like about the Capillary Bunker product is that the entire bunker bottom is covered. It doesn’t matter where water enters the bunker, you know it will always flow down to the drain at the bottom.”

Architect Nathan Crace handled the renovation, and Swart is ecstatic at the results. “Before we started, around fifty per cent of our bunkers simply didn’t drain,” he says. “In the first three months after we renovated, we had 22 inches of rain – we went from an incredibly dry summer to an incredibly wet winter. There is not a bunker out there that has held water or washed out, or retained any silt. They have been the best addition to this golf course.”

He says the benefits to Oakwing will be enormous. “All year long, we were trying to keep sand in the bunkers to a decent depth and now we don’t have to,” he explains. “I have a crew of ten, and it used to take three or four days to get the bunkers back into condition after heavy rain. Now one guy goes out with a rake and in a couple of hours they’re fine. My guys love them! The look on their faces when they come into work after rain has transformed. They used to come in and know they were going to spend the next three or four days in the bunkers. Now, they know they don’t have to.”

But the most dramatic change is to the bottom line. Swart says the savings from his new bunkers will be substantial. “We are going to save $50-70,000 a year just on labour from the new bunkers, and there will be another $12-15,000 from not having to replace sand,” he says. “For us, that is a big, big difference.”

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TLM robot saves time and money

TLM robot saves time and money: The Lilywhites’ home ground, Deepdale, holds the title of the ‘world’s oldest professional footballing site in continuous use’ with Preston North End FC (PNE) remaining loyal to the plot of land that [former cricket] club members leased in 1875.

Today, PNE Head Groundsman Pete Ashworth and his team of six, are ensuring that the site continues to remain ‘fit for purpose’ by maintaining excellent pitch standards at Deepdale – as well as those at the club’s Springfields academy site and newly acquired first-team training ground in Euxton.

TLM robot saves time and money

TLM robot saves time and money

Both sites feature four, natural turf and fibresand pitches and are located a few miles apart, which can cause a time-management issue for Pete, although he’s now able to reduce pitch-marking man hours – thanks to Rigby Taylor’s robot line-marking technology.

Team work

Pete’s team includes Sam Newton who oversees the Deepdale stadium, 19-year-old Luke MacDonald looks after the Springfields site, while Dean Ash and Dan Mahoney manage the new Euxton site – assisted by two willing apprentices, Harry Duckworth and John Paul Mcavoy, who are given work experience across all sites, as and when required.

When the club took over the Euxton pitches in September last year [it was previously owned by Bolton Wanders and more recently Wigan Athletic FC] Pete says the site hadn’t been renovated, there was a high population of meadow grass and no fertiliser had been applied since February that year.

Dan, a former Wigan Athletic FC groundsman joined the grounds team around the same time and Pete says his knowledge of the site helped to get the pitches back on track with an agreed well-balanced fertiliser programme that mirrored the one used at the Springfields site – before raking out and lightly top dressing the pitches ready for use.

This programme included Rigby Taylor’s Activate biostimulent, ConVert and ConVert Gold, Apex and Nutri-Link liquid fertiliser – and this, plus other turf-related issues are discussed on a regular basis by Pete and former Preston Golf Club Course Manager, Andy Merry, who is now Pete’s local Rigby Taylor Sales Technician.

“I’ve worked with Rigby Taylor for most of my time at Preston and trust the products because they have always performed,” Pete says. “Andy and I have a great relationship. We have regular sit-down chats and plan what we think the pitches need the month ahead. We look at the weather forecast, compare it with the year before, and decide which products to use.”

Pete uses Rigby Taylor R14 grass seed on the Deepdale pitch and likes to mix up the grass seed on training ground pitches to “see what works best” – using Rigby Taylor’s R140 grass seed on half of the natural turf and fibresand pitches. Andy is also working with Pete to get the best product colour and longevity by conducting trial plots on the Springfields and Euxton sites.

Time efficiency

Regarding grounds team time management across the extended training ground sites, Pete says available man hours can be a problem – particularly when marking pitches in the height of the summer when the grass growth meant cutting the lines out every day.

He saw a potential solution when he was introduced to Rigby Taylor’s robotic Tiny Line Marker (TLM) at SALTEX 2019 and after subsequent demonstrations, advised the club that it would be a cost-effective time saver for the grounds team.

“Getting the robot is quite innovative for us and we’re pleased the club supported us,” Pete says. “We now take the TLM to mark out twice a week at each site – it’s used on the first team training ground on a Monday and Thursday, and the academy on a Tuesday and Friday. If there’s only one lad at the academy site, he can just set it off while he gets on with the cutting or vertidraining – it’s definitely helping us a lot.”

When the TLM Sport arrived, Pete and his team had a ‘hands-on’ TLM Sport training day at Euxton. Andrew showed the team how to use the accompanying tablet, access the football pitch templates and how to plot bespoke pitch markings. “We literally turn on the tablet, click on the required pitch template and press start – it’s so easy,” Pete says, adding that he also uses Rigby Taylor’s IMPACT paint for vibrant lines.

“Now all the pitch templates are stored in the tablet for each site, if we ever lose one – for example, if we were cutting and didn’t mark it, we know we can put the robot back out and it will mark it up from scratch within half an hour.”

The grounds team’s hard work doesn’t go unnoticed either. West Ham FC’s first team recently trained at the Springfields site before their mid-week game against Man United FC and their Saturday fixture with Leeds FC and as well as some of the players, West Ham manager David Moyes remarked on how good the pitch was – compared to when he was managing the club 20 years ago.

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