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Groundsman to play on his ‘sacred’ pitch

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Groundsman to play on his ‘sacred’ pitch: A Scarlets groundsman who has worked for the club for over a decade is getting the chance to play on his “sacred ground” for the first time.

Read the full article from ITV here

Groundsman to play on his 'sacred' pitch

Groundsman to play on his ‘sacred’ pitch

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Hunter on target for the Darts

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Hunter on target for the Darts: The heavily used pitch at Dartford FC’s Princes Park Stadium is benefitting from a recently installed Hunter irrigation system, supplied by KAR UK.

From Dartford FC’s first team to the academy teams; from the Dartford ladies’ teams and London City Lionesses to Charlton FC’s Under 23’s, the pitch at Princes Park is in regular demand. To be precise, it averages 76 games per year.

Hunter on target for the Darts

Hunter on target for the Darts

Responsible for ensuring every one of those games takes place is the experienced Head Groundsman Jay Berkhauer who works for Jordans Sports Ground Solutions – who are responsible for the maintenance of Princess Park as well as a host of other clubs all over the South East.

Jay has been in charge at Princes Park Stadium for three seasons and has made a significant improvement to the pitch.

In recognising that such a heavily used pitch requires good irrigation, he was quick to ensure it was one of his first actions when starting the role at Princes Park.

“When I first came in the irrigation system wasn’t in good shape and it had been neglected for a few years,” he said. “Most of the sprinkler heads didn’t work and the control point was located so far away from the pitch. On a matchday I was constantly running back and forth, switching it on and off, whenever the manager wanted water on the pitch. This was a nightmare especially as I am the only groundsperson based here.

“Therefore, the irrigation was something that I wanted fixed as soon as possible.”

Supplied by KAR UK and installed by Prime Irrigation, Jay chose the i-40 rotors, and the Centralus irrigation management platform. This provides a highly secure, comprehensive cloud-based control and monitoring features to the ICC2 controller at the stadium.

The connectivity allows users to view a controller’s status, change settings, view forecasts, save water, and receive instant notification of important system alarms — all without costly and time-consuming travel and site visits.

Hunter on target for the Darts

Hunter on target for the Darts

“It has been a huge game changer since it was installed,” said Jay. “Gone are the days of running back and forth because I can control it all from my phone no matter where I am. For example, there have been times when the pitch is being watered while I’m at home. There has been a downpour and I can simply turn the system off through my phone.

“We’ve also noticed that we have saved a lot of money on water usage too,” continued Jay.

“It allows me to target specific areas on the pitch – one area might need five minutes of water while another area might just need two minutes on a matchday. It’s great to have this flexibility and to be able to only use water when and where the pitch needs it.

“It has never gone wrong, and I’ve never had any problems with it. Compared to what I’ve used in my career, this irrigation system is by far the best and the easiest to use.”

For more information, please visit www.karuk.com

You can also follow KAR UK on Twitter @KARUK_LTD for much more news, reviews and insightful views

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Walking on air in Greenwich Park

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Walking on air in Greenwich Park: The oldest enclosed Royal Park, Greenwich covers 74 hectares on top of a hill where visitors enjoy sweeping views across the River Thames to St Paul’s Catherdral and beyond.

There has been a settlement on the site since Roman times, and Greenwich has always had a strong association with royalty. Historic tree areas date from 1660 when Charles II was king and eleven original trees from the period can be found in the park. In 2019, the park had over five million visitors and with its view and attractions – there’s even a Saxon burial mound – it is no wonder when the pandemic struck there was a massive increase in visitors in the first year of lockdown.

Walking on air in Greenwich Park

Walking on air in Greenwich Park

“It was like bank holiday every day,” says Adam Stoter, Greenwich Park’s Technical Officer. “Greenwich Park offered an open-air space when there were few places people could go. The trouble was, the added footfall compounded the growing problem of compaction in and around the tree areas.”

The Royal Parks’ flagship project ‘Greenwich Park Revealed’ had already begun to restore the 590-year-old park to protect and share its heritage. They aim to go above and beyond in tree care and management and it was a natural progression to bring in the specialist services of Terrain Aeration’s Tree Division. The company has been treating tree areas in Royal Parks for many years and, in the case of Greenwich this year, applied their technology across 15,000 square metres. Where there is heavy compaction it is essential to break up the soil at a depth greater than the tree roots, other than the main tap roots which go straight down, to allow excess water to drain away and help stop anaerobic conditions and rotting of the root system.

The Terrain Aeration Terralift machine sends a probe to a depth of one metre where compressed air is released to a maximum of 20Bar (280psi). This blast of air fractures the soil and creates fissures which interlink as the Terralift repeats the process on a grid system of two-metre spacings. As the probe withdraws at the end of the air blast, dried seaweed is injected which sticks to the fissure walls, expanding and contracting with moisture content in the soil to keep the area ’breathing’. In most cases, the area treated will be one-metre inside and one-metre outside the canopy drip line to reach beyond the growing roots, increasing the percentage of oxygen intake and allow maximum drainage. In all, Terrain Aeration treated around 15,000 square metres to help ensure the future of the historic tree areas where visitors will literally walk on air.

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Vandals on motorbikes destroy greens

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Vandals on motorbikes destroy greens: Police patrols will be carried out at a popular golf course after vandals riding a motorbike damaged the greens.

Read the full article from Express and Star here

Vandals on motorbikes destroy greens

Vandals on motorbikes destroy greens

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

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Rapid ROI on Capillary Bunkers

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Rapid ROI on Capillary Bunkers: Last year, the six-course Landings Club, in Savannah, Georgia, installed the Capillary Bunkers liner on its Magnolia course, as part of a large-scale renovation with Arnold Palmer Design architect Brandon Johnson. And director of ground and projects Chris Steigelman says the results are already showing the wisdom of that decision.

“We have dabbled with various bunker drainage techniques across our courses, though none of them apart from Magnolia have wall to wall liners,” he says. “But part of the goals of the renovation project was to reduce our bunker maintenance workload. Brandon’s designs called for the bunker surface area to be reduced by 50 per cent, and with the Capillary Bunkers liner, the amount of time we now spend on bunker sand maintenance has gone down dramatically.”

Rapid ROI on Capillary Bunkers

Rapid ROI on Capillary Bunkers

The new-look Magnolia has retained the steeply flashed bunker faces that the course previously had, and Steigelman says that the liner has played an important role in making the design work effectively. “We get around fifty inches of rain a year, and in the summertime we often get thunderstoms coming from out of nowhere and dumping a huge load of rain on us,” he explains. “Previously, every time we got a big rain, the bunkers were destroyed, and I had to put several guys on rebuilding them for several days. Now, that doesn’t happen.”

The club started the renovation project in March 2021, with the Capillary Bunkers installation starting in June. The bunkers were finished in August, and the course reopened – hosting a Korn Ferry Tour event in its first week – at the start of November. Georgia-based contractor Todd Godwin Construction handled the work.

Steigelman says the benefits of the Capillary Bunkers technology have already been made very clear. “We operate two golf courses out of the Magnolia maintenance facility, the Marshwood course as well as Magnolia,” he says. “We got hit by two tropical storms, one on a Sunday night at the end of June: seven inches of rain, four in an hour and a half. It trashed the bunkers on Marshwood, to the extent that we had to spend $25,000 dollars on new bunker sand. The bunkers on Magnolia were like nothing had ever happened. It was incredible. I took our board out there and said to them ‘This is what you’re paying for’.”

“I’m very grateful that we chose Capillary Bunkers, because of the ease of installation. During the build, it was raining every day, and so we wouldn’t have been able to install some of the competitor products. But the guys were just out there laying the concrete and then putting plastic sheeting over it to help it dry!”

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