Educational Establishments What’s in the shed?
John Deere 4520 compact tractor John Deere 3520 compact tractor with auto connect deck and bucket
John Deere 7700 fairway mower John Deere triples x 2 John Deere CX Gator Sisis Litamina Sisis Megaslit Sisis Quadraplay Sisis Twinplay Sisis Rosca Wessex Flail Collector Wessex Flail Mower Auto-roller, Dennis cassette mowers x 2 Allett Tournament Sisis Rotarake Honda rotary mowers x 2 Sisis Dart
Sisis Multitine
Plus a pedestrian sprayer, knapsack sprayer, chainsaw, backpack blowers and transfer wheel linemarkers
Our tractors are on a five-year replacement deal. Other items we get new or second hand. Its been a couple of year since we had any new equipment due to the tight budgets. We desperately need a verti-drain and two new triples, but it’s hard to get the funding for new machinery as my budget doesn’t cover big ticket items. We are waiting on how the sports budget looks at the end of the financial year.
We use a few dealers, such as P S Marsden and Henton & Chattell, or even direct with companies such as Sisis.
I have always been a big fan of the John Deere range. I know it can be a little more expensive, but you do get what you pay for and their equipment has always been very reliable. But that does not mean I won’t buy other machines. I will demo and try anything. Before we spend, we are always 100% certain that we are making the right choice as you don’t know when the next lot of money is coming in!
We hire a few machinery items, such as verti-drains and seeders. I’m fortunate that I can borrow bits from other sports clubs such as Leicestershire CCC, Leicester City and the Tigers.
P S Marsden carry out our annual servicing and they do a brilliant job; we always have great service from them. We also try to repair our own equipment through the season to try and keep repair costs to a minimum.
My wish list includes, most importantly, a verti- drain, then a second Gator, a new disc seeder, a flatbed van to transport equipment between sites and a mounted sprayer.
74 I PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2015
Leicester Tigers in training
have personal development plans. On my staff appraisals, they/we will highlight what training is needed to further enhance the grounds team. At the end of the day, you are only as good as the people who surround you, so it’s a win win situation.
All the grounds team are highly qualified first aiders. The university put us on a course as soon as we start, with refresher courses every year. I monitor the first aid boxes, but we are all capable of producing accident forms.
Are you considering employing or do you currently employ apprentices?
We have had apprentices in the past and we are very keen to take them on in the future. We don’t currently have one on our books but, hopefully, this coming year will see that change again. We have found apprentices to be a perfect solution for our small team. I have always been a backer of the apprenticeship scheme as it was the way I learned the job. With our last apprentice, we had some problems and he messed us about a lot, so we stopped doing it for a few years.
How do you undertake pest and weed control?
We have a contractor come in to spray all relevant chemicals for us as we don’t have the equipment for the size of our grounds. He does our annual weed and worm spray, but we do all our own spraying on our cricket squares.
We suffer from fairy rings in a few areas,
which we control a lot better now than we used to by giving them a spike, applying a fungicide and then a wetting agent to really get the fungicide deep into the problem. They have improved, but are still slightly visible.
Are rabbits, badgers, foxes, geese, chafer grubs, worms etc. a problem?
We have a problem with rabbits; they dig up our drainage runs from time to time which can be very annoying. The fields next to us have bird scarers, so we never have a big issue with birds, just the odd pigeon when seeding. I have a man come in to get rid of the rabbits once a month and he’s normally quite successful.
How important do you consider the local flora and fauna?
Very important. I am part of the biodiversity working group within the university. We have meetings quarterly to discuss biodiversity impacts across the whole university. We have everything on the agenda from bats to vegetable gardens to wildlife. If there’s any way we can help the environment, we try.
We are trying to establish a wildflower area at the Manor Road site; we are into its first year now and it’s looking quite good. Also, we have added bird and bat boxes to the Manor Road site recently.
Our new gym has a green roof and harvests water to use for the toilets; the university are very forward thinking in trying to ‘get green’.
Snowdrops in the wood
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