Steve Ascott, Head Groundsman at St. Albans School - about to make a purchase!
A whirlwind romance?
James Cavanagh, Groundsman at Rugby School - impressed by Votex and Wessex
During the Pitchcare leaf open day at Rugby School I had the opportunity to test two machines.
VOTEX WHIRLWIND 960 E Kersten
A big thank you to James Mead, Rugby School and Pitchcare for putting on the leaf clearing demonstration day. The subject matter was not necessarily the most exciting but we had a very interesting and informative day! Numerous machines gathered to show off their blowing,sucking and/or collecting capabilities. Reps had the time and opportunity to go into detail, both explaining and demonstrating the machines. It was very easy to compare like with like to see what a machine can actually do.
I think these specialised demonstration
days are a good thing as you have time to see and try out a machine without feeling that you still have half the show to get round.
Rugby was a very impressive venue and it was good to see the hallowed turf where the game began. James took a few of us on a guided tour of some of the historical parts of the school as well as explaining cutting regimes and what he does with his compost.
On the back of this day we have had two leaf blowers on demo - a Billy Goat Force and a Kersten Vento and expect to buy in the near future. So I think it was a productive day alround.
This leaf blower would be my choice, as its easy to manoeuvre, and weighs only 78kg. It has a height adjustable handle, and a cast-aluminium casing for the powerful fan. The casing makes this one of the quieter blowers. It has a 6.5kw, 9hp Honda 4 stroke engine, with an adjustabe vertical airflow guide. Ideal for both grass and astroturf pitches at Rugby School. I found it to be the most efficient of the machines I tested on the day. It is designed for all types of leaf clearing operations, on all sports grounds.
Votex WESSEX PROLINE TRACTOR MOWER Billy Goat
I found the Wessex Proline tractor mounted mower to be very efficient. It has a cutting width of 1.95m, with four rotary blades. I was very impressed with the professional, fine cut finish it produced. It has floating linkage points, and also very easy to adjust the height of cut. All parts are easily accessible for maintenance. The safety guards were easily removed for greasing and belt changes. It has to be driven by a 30hp tractor, and can be road driven between each sports ground. Priced at
£3.785 + VAT this machine would be my choice for the most professional finish to our sports ground at Rugby School. Overall, I found the Pitchcare leaf day demonstrations very interesting. I was very
impressed with the different types of machinery bought to the school for the trials, and also by the new technologies that the groundscare industry now has to offer.
SUMMARY: All in all a fantastic opportunity to see so many different machines being demonstrated in a typical working environment. The recent leaf fall, and James Mead’s prudence in not clearing them away for three weeks, provided plenty of debris for the machines to be tested on. I found it invaluable to be able to compare one machine with another, especially in terms of manoeuvrability, efficiency and noise levels in a school environment. I was particularly impressed with the Force blower
from Pinnacle Power - it was extremely powerful for its size. I could also see it doing a good job of clearing away the arisings after scarification of cricket pitches, bowls greens etc. I was also impressed with the Etesia range of powerful rotary mowers, whilst the larger leaf collectors all performed very well and clearly make the job of clearing debris from large areas more efficient and cost effective.
Amazone THE TRACTOR BOYS Kioti
New Holland and Massey Fergusons
Massey Ferguson brought along three tractors; the MF GC2300 versatile 4 wheel drive sub compact tractor, the MF 1531 and the MF 1540 models. New Holland provided two of their latest tractor models, the TN60D and the TN45DA. Reco provided two Kioti Tractors, the EX45 hydrostatic and the CK 40 manual tractor.
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