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Click & Collect With The Countax PGC+

Click & Collect With The Countax PGC+: Countax garden tractors have been made in Britain for over thirty years and have a reputation for being tough, durable and built for British weather conditions. A key feature of the Countax is the Power Take Off (PTO) which drives the Powered Grass Collector (PGC) and a range of accessories.

Countax has now introduced the PGC+. An accessory which transforms a C or B Series garden tractor into a multi-use, year-round workhorse. The PGC+ is a cassette system which allows you to quickly and easily switch accessories, each one designed for a specific garden task. It means you only need one machine to maintain your lawn, driveway, path and other areas of your garden. The Grass Sweeper cassette comes as standard. Click it into place and fifty-one brushes rotate at over 1100rpm to sweep grass clippings, fallen leaves and other debris into the hopper, even when the grass is wet.

Click & Collect With The Countax PGC+

Scarifying a lawn to rid it of moss and thatch encourages thicker, lusher grass. Installing the Scarifier cassette into the PGC+ reduces the need for a separate scarifier. The easy-to-insert cassette makes light work of scarifying and takes considerably less time than using a walk-behind machine. Especially considering that scarifying and collection of the debris is done simultaneously.

Using the PGC+ is simple. There is no need to unhitch it. Just take off the collection net, remove the current cassette and load in the next. Considerable financial savings can be made using the PGC+. There is no longer the need to purchase separate, standalone equipment. Additional cassettes are coming shortly, including a Hard Surface Brush cassette which transforms your Countax into a heavy-duty powered broom for maintaining hard surfaces such as paths and driveways.

For more information contact Countax on 01844 278800 or visit www.countax.co.uk/dealers to find your local dealer.

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Toro Takes Northamptonshire GC Into The Future

Toro Takes Northamptonshire GC Into The Future: Toro and Reesink Turfcare are delighted to welcome Northamptonshire County Golf Club as a Toro Total Solutions customer.

The Open Regional Qualifying club in the Midlands has committed to Toro as it brings back the feel of its past with Toro machinery and thinks to the future with a Toro irrigation renovation.

Toro Takes Northamptonshire GC Into The Future

Course manager, Rob Hay, who has been at the club for five years says the reason behind the commitment is twofold: “Over the years the course had been managed as a parkland course which it wasn’t designed to be. We’ve been working towards returning the course to its original heathland state as designed by Harry Colt, opening up each hole and giving it a flavour of the old days. Toro machinery is key to that.

“This is our first fleet lease deal, but we’ve been using Toro since before I started, and Toro is instrumental in this vision taking shape. Toro has made a big impact and brought about noticeable change in the direction of the course’s maintenance and members are seeing the difference. Many have commented on how the course now looks like they remember it from the early 1970s and plays with a true running heathland style from those days too, which we’re delighted to hear.”

When it comes to the irrigation, Rob says the club’s commitment to Toro is a nod to the future: “We’re not in a predicament with our current system, but we’re forward planning so we’re ready for a seamless transition when the time comes. What we noticed in the heatwave of last year was that there are areas that could be improved upon, more efficient and better managed. In the midlands we’re water scarce and as we irrigate from a local river the goal is to get ourselves into a position where we’re using our water better and utilising every drop. We believe Toro is the partner to make that happen.

“I’m conscious this is a big outlay – one of the biggest a course can make – and it’s important we get this right. We’re currently working with Reesink and Adrian Motram finalising the plans for what’s exactly needed and if the quality of the irrigation system is anything like that of the Toro machinery, I know we’ll be in for a great experience using Toro Irrigation.”

As one of only 13 Regional Qualifying courses in the UK, Northamptonshire County Golf Club has high standards to maintain, plus the challenge of an unusual 21-hole layout to contend with. “We appreciate we’re in the company of a select few being a Regional Qualifying course and take great pride in the fact that we resumed our status last year for the 147th Open,” says Rob.

Retaining that position comes with hard work and dedication, which Rob and his greenkeeping team of nine have in abundance. “Every year there are new projects to undertake and as a team we look forward to this as much as we do the usual high season maintenance work. It’s a good challenge for us all and having Toro on board has really made a difference.”

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Tools Of The Trade With Charterhouse At SALTEX

Tools Of The Trade With Charterhouse At SALTEX: After launching to much acclaim earlier in the year, the OxyShot will be taking centre-stage on the Charterhouse Turf Machinery stand at SALTEX 2019.

Suitable for use on a variety of sports surfaces, visitors to stand K070 will see how the air-injection unit can relieve compaction, improve drainage and revitalise growth without the need for chemical applications.

Tools Of The Trade With Charterhouse At SALTEX

The OxyShot uses a single 25mm probe to inject air into the soil in four directions, at a pressure of up to 110psi and to a maximum depth of 500mm (20”). It can also be fitted with an optional 14mm probe, to reduce the working depth to 250mm. Perfect for ‘on the spot’ treatments, the highly manoeuvrable unit can be easily transported for use in a variety of situations – from golf course walkways to goal mouths, tennis baselines and sports pitch touchlines. It can also be used for arboricultural operations, to deliver aeration to tree roots growing in compacted, air-starved soils.

The Charterhouse team will also be on hand to discuss the many new and future developments from the Redexim stable, including the newly re-modelled Speed-Seed range. Together with an updated livery, the popular dimple-seeder range has been extended to feature four new working widths – 1.1m, 1.5m, 2m and 2.3m.

For situations where drill lines need to be avoided, the Speed-Seed range is a popular choice. A spiked sarel roller creates 940 holes per m2, with a rear brush then sweeping the delivered seed into the mass of holes leaving a groomed finish in its wake. An optional second roller can be fitted to double the number of holes created. With model sizes to suit a variety of environments, the Speed-Seed range is ideal for overseeding large or small areas, quickly and with ease.

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The Turfix Pitch At SALTEX

The Turfix Pitch At SALTEX: Turfix, The Pitchmark Group subsidiary formed at the beginning of 2019, will be exhibiting at Saltex this year with the latest products and developments.

Turfix acts as Pitchmark’s UK distribution arm, offering premium pitch solutions to the professional sports turf sector. The service includes bespoke advice, education and supply of a wide range of innovative products. Turfix has grown out of very good relationships with other manufacturers and over thirty years’ experience in the horticultural and amenity sector. Comprising a highly experienced team with years of knowledge, the business has expanded throughout the year.

The Turfix Pitch At SALTEX

The Turfix Services’ GPS marking division has seen new operators in the North and South coming on board during the Easter and summer periods. Over 300 pitches and tracks have been marked by the team since July alone. Martin Samuel has joined as Regional Account Manager for the South West.

“Turfix represents true quality of service.” says Mark Rodman, The Pitchmark Group’s Chairman. “We have created a facility which allows our people to spend more time with groundsmen and help tailor solutions specifically to their requirements.” Each account manager has been a groundsman or greenkeeper in their career, lending weight to a unique level of understanding. Fully complementing the exception level of service is the supply of a wide range of products.

The latest is the new British product, Block Blitz, a paving treatment with a real difference. It’s described as the UK’s first block paving specific treatment, designed to clean and protect paving without the need for scrubbing, jetwashing or sealing. Block Blitz joins the wide range of Turfix distributed products including Pitchmark, ICL, Syngenta, Harrod Sport and Tildenet Sport.

Turfix supplied a range of products to Parc des Princes stadium for their FIFA Women’s World Cup games and Pitchmark supplied all stadia at FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014 and Euro 2016 France.  Pitchmark paint was also used to mark the pitch at the Principality Stadium for the Champions League Final 2017.

Turfix is on Stand No. E125 at Saltex

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Up For The Cup At Gleneagles

Up For The Cup At Gleneagles: Gleneagles will hold a unique position in golfing history when the biggest event in women’s golf concludes this weekend, by becoming the first venue in Europe to have hosted both The Solheim Cup and The Ryder Cup (in 2014).

As the Gleneagles and volunteer greenkeeping teams led by golf courses manager Craig Haldane, together with director of agronomy and estates Scott Fenwick, put the finishing touches to the Jack Nicklaus-designed PGA Centenary Course, John Deere and local dealer Double A are equally busy behind the scenes.

Up for The Cup at Gleneagles

The greenkeeping team at Gleneagles has risen to 100 people, with tournament standard conditioning also extending to The King’s Course, which is hosting The Junior Solheim Cup, and The Queen’s Course, which remains open for member and VIP visitor play during the week.

John Deere is the official golf course and turf maintenance machinery event partner to Gleneagles for this 16th biennial edition of The Solheim Cup. The company has a long association with professional golf, having been a title sponsor on the PGA Tour, official supplier to the PGA Tour for over 25 years, official supplier to the Ladies European Tour and a partner at numerous Solheim Cup events.

In addition, John Deere is partnering Gleneagles by exclusively providing golf course maintenance machinery and ancillary equipment for use across all three championship golf courses.

“We are very grateful for the support from our local dealer Double A as we’ve been gearing up the John Deere fleet ahead of the tournament,” says Craig Haldane. “Typically we aim to maintain all three courses at a very high level all year round, but we’ve upped the ante for The Solheim Cup.

“Closing the course three weeks prior to the event has allowed it to recover from any stress and provided additional time to prepare and introduce a higher frequency of cut. By fine tuning our existing practices we’ve been able go up another level in terms of a quality cut and finish for the tournament.

“We’re also very fortunate to benefit from the extra resources and experience provided by the volunteer greenkeepers supporting our team this week. Eight of the 52 volunteers are women, who have joined our own Laura Campbell and BIGGA’s head of membership services Tracey Maddison to help with the course preparations, so it’s fitting that we can showcase the equal role women play in our industry, especially during The Solheim Cup.”

Up for The Cup at Gleneagles

Carlos Aragones, John Deere European turf sales & marketing manager, adds: “The Solheim Cup is one of the biggest events on the 2019 sporting calendar and we are delighted to be a part of it. We are also proud of our collaboration with Gleneagles in helping to prepare the course for such a prestigious tournament.”

In 2019 John Deere and its dealers are supporting more than 10 major tournaments in the UK and Ireland, every month from the Betfred British Masters at Hillside Golf Club in May to The Solheim Cup at Gleneagles and the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in September. This involves providing specialist support staff and more than 150 machines including walk-behind and ride-on greens mowers, tees & surrounds, fairway and rough mowers, compact tractors and Gator utility vehicles.

“Traditionally we work closely with the individual club’s course managers and greenkeeping teams to help keep all the machines in the fleet serviced and ready for work each day, and ensure all cutting units can achieve the highest possible quality of cut,” says John Deere Limited turf division manager Chris Meacock. “This partnership approach helps everyone to achieve the best possible results where they matter, out on the course, and keep things running as smoothly as possible throughout the event.”

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