Robotic mowers are at a very interesting point in their simulated life.

Anecdotally, talking to various dealers recently, there seems to be a real spread of feelings about them.

There will be some dealers who feel they are just not for them, or more specifically not for their customers.

Others who do a bit with them, who would like to do more, and are looking for ways to up their volumes.

And others still who are complete advocates of the technology, who are doing a thriving trade in the machines.

Clearly the manufacturers have the utmost confidence in robots, which they are now beginning to seriously target at not just the high-end domestic market, but increasingly the commercial sector also. Parks, golf clubs, municipal green spaces are all being cited as potentially perfect areas on which to set a robot, or team of robots, about their business.

One of the key elements in this confidence which the manufacturers have in robotic mowing, is that they know they will have barely scraped the surface yet in what the technology can potentially be capable of. Yes, I imagine all the brands will be happy that their offerings have got the vital element right and can do a great job of cutting the grass effectively. It's the bells and whistles beyond that, which will push the machines further into mainstream acceptance - the way they've been embraced in countries like Germany and Sweden.

I attended a very interesting event on robotic mowing at Husqvarna's premises in Newton Aycliffe yesterday. The headline announcement was that from September this year owners of both an Automower and an Amazon voice control hub featuring the Alexa system, will be able to combine the two.

Initially users from inside their house will be able to ask Alexa to get their Automower to start, stop, pause and give them status updates.

However, the tech people behind the scenes are working on way more advanced features. We were treated to a demo yesterday of a prototype where the Alexa technology could be built into the mower itself. Users could then talk directly to the Automower when they are out in the garden to send it on its way or to tell it to stop or to give out mowing information.

Beyond that still, Husqvarna's Dr. Petra Sundström, who's their Director of Idea and Innovation Management, is looking ahead to a time when cameras could potentially be fitted to the mowers. Wherever an owner was in the world they could then in theory be able to log in via their phone, and see what their mower sees.

This then could then be taken even further where the unit cutting your grass becomes a sort of 'garden hub' which via sensors could monitor a garden's plants, its watering needs, fertilisation requirements, it could act as a security feature, as a line-marker for sports, or simply to bring WiFi into the outdoors. The possibilities are pretty mind blowing.

'Smart living' as it's termed, with many features around the home controlled by one central voice-activated hub, is apparently set to triple in popularity by 2022. The U.S has embraced this philosophy quicker than the rest of world, but experts believe it's only going to become more commonplace everywhere.

We were told yesterday that presently there isn't that much smart living technology specifically designed for the garden out there.

So it would seem then that dealers have the perfect opportunity to position themselves at the forefront of this exciting future. Why shouldn’t the specialists in the equipment which we’ve historically used in the outdoor space, make themselves the experts in this future outdoor smart living world?

Ransomes Jacobsen has announced several changes to sales territories in the north of England and Wales to, they say, "streamline and strengthen" its UK dealer network.

Ransomes Jacobsen, which distributes Ransomes and Jacobsen turf-care equipment, E-Z-GO golf cars, and Cushman utility vehicles in the UK, operates as part of Textron Specialized Vehicles Inc.

Following a review of regional coverage, three existing dealers: F.R. Sharrock Ltd., Rickerby Ltd., and Burdens Group Ltd. will take on additional territories as part of their current dealer agreements.

GGM Groundcare and Platt Harris Groundcare have had their Ransomes Jacobsen dealer agreements terminated and will no longer represent products from the TSV portfolio.

Sharrocks. Rickerby and Burdens are experienced with the full range of Ransomes Jacobsen products and the manufacturer said in a statement they are geographically well-placed to offer "an excellent customer experience for sales and after-sales support, spare parts and service".

F.R. Sharrock Ltd, which has depots near Manchester and Stoke, has extended its current areas in the North West & Midlands to now include the areas of Lancashire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Derbyshire with additional responsibility for Harrogate and Doncaster.

Rickerby Ltd., which has depots at Carlisle and Hexham, has been awarded an extension to its territory to cover an area from Dumfries and Galloway down to the Lancaster district of Lancashire and North Yorkshire.

The Burdens Group Ltd. which has depots at North Kyme and Sutterton, will cover the East of England from Yorkshire in the north down to the A14 through Northamptonshire.

Commenting on the changes to the dealer network, international sales manager at Textron Specialized Vehicles Inc., John Quinton, said, “I would like to thank our partners for their continued hard work and dedication to the Ransomes Jacobsen product range. Our dealers are very knowledgeable about the machinery, and have an excellent track record of first-class customer service and support. We are delighted with the way the dealer network is set-up, and look forward to supporting our dealers and customers moving forward.”

In addition to these changes, John Osman Groundcare will now focus on the Textron Golf family of products for North Wales, including Jacobsen turf-care equipment, E-Z-GO golf cars and Cushman utility vehicles. The Ransomes franchise for this area has been awarded to F.R. Sharrock Ltd.

At an event at their Newton Aycliffe base yesterday (March 15 2018), Husqvarna announced that their robotic mowers will soon be compatible with the cloud-based voice activation service, Alexa.

Once the integration launches on September 1st this year, homeowners with Husqvarna Automower will be able to start, stop, park and get status-updates from their mower by asking Alexa.

At the event yesterday, the company demonstrated the functions of “Just ask Alexa” and future Amazon Alexa features for their robotic mowers. The first version will be available in all Automower Connect equipped robotic mowers, including the many thousands of connected Husqvarna robotic mowers already in gardens and parks across the world today.

This first version will be able to take care of the most commonly used commands such as start, stop and park, which the company said will provide an additional way of integrating with the robotic mower, besides the existing mobile applications.

“We have made our Automower Alexa-compatible, as cloud-based voice services are growing fast”, said Sascha Menges, President of the Husqvarna Division.

“Our customers rightly expect Husqvarna products to be in the forefront, giving them multiple and ever more convenient ways of interacting with the product.”

Returning to the Oxford Belfry Hotel this November, the Service Dealer Conference & Awards will benefit from Honda (UK) as a Gold Sponsor

The date of this year's event has been confirmed as Thursday November 15th. 

Steve Morris, Head of Power Equipment, Honda (UK), said, "I’m delighted that we are able to support in 2018. Service Dealer is a highly regarded voice in the industry and the Awards is a key date in the diary.

"The ATV Dealer of the Year accolade is hotly contested and I’m very intrigued to see who comes out on top. Good luck to all the nominees."

Service Dealer owner Duncan Murray-Clarke said, "We are delighted to welcome Honda (UK) to the Service Dealer Conference & Awards.

"We will soon be announcing our theme for this year's event as well as some key speakers. It's great to have Honda on board for what will be a very special day, in this, the magazine's 30th year."

Keep a look out for further announcements regarding this year's Service Dealer Conference & Awards.

A survey carried out by manufacturer Cub Cadet has found that the lawnmowing season in the UK lasts 233 days.

The 2017 research is part of an ongoing project to investigate how changing weather patterns are impacting grass growth and lawnmowing activity in the UK.

According to the survey the most popular date to start mowing was found to be Sunday 26th March. At the end of the season the most popular day for putting away the lawnmower was Thursday 2nd November.

It also found that the average span of days between first and last mow was 233 days, meaning that mowers are out cutting for approximately seven and a half months of the year.

The shortest phase entered by a participant was 148 days from Lancashire, and the longest was 349 days further down south in Shropshire where their mower was still going at the end of the survey in mid-December, including New Year’s Day in 2017!

The majority of lawns had their final cut in the fortnight between 23rd October and 5th November.

In order for Cub Cadet to generate year on year comparisons and to analyse the ongoing impact of weather conditions they are inviting people to submit their lawnmowing dates again this year. The 2018 survey is now live for people to enter their dates again, allowing Cub Cadet to generate year on year comparisons and to analyse the ongoing impact of weather conditions.

To participate gardeners simply complete a form online telling Cub Cadet the date of their first mow and then again at the end of the season. In return Cub Cadet is offering one lucky participant £50 worth of National Garden Gift Vouchers to be redeemed at garden centres across the country.

To submit a first mow date visit www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/lawn2018 . Cub Cadet will then remind entrants later in the year to also submit when the last mow takes place.

OPICO Ltd has announced the appointment of Franks Curtis, based between Pickering and Malton in North Yorkshire, to their Strautmann and OPICO grassland machinery dealer network.

L-R: Mike Burley, Territory Manager, OPICO and David Franks, Managing Director of Franks Curtis

Commenting, James Woolway, OPICO’s Managing Director said, “David Franks and his team have a wealth of knowledge and experience and the dealership covers a good mixed farming area, with a strong tradition of grassland and dairy operations - perfect for these brands. We are delighted to have them on board.”

Franks Curtis Managing Director, David Franks added, “The Strautmann range of forage wagons and diet feeders, coupled with OPICO’s heritage and expertise in grassland equipment, are a valuable addition to our machinery portfolio. We pride ourselves on supplying our customers with a dedicated after-sales package.

"Our highly trained engineers have already been to the Strautmann service training in Germany and are fully up-to-speed with both the Strautmann and OPICO grassland product ranges.”

BBC Countryfile farmer Adam Henson, will be doing a book signing at dealers Briants Of Risborough, following the striking up of a relationship at the Service Dealer Conference a couple of years ago.

Chris Starling, General Manager of Briants says, "We were fortunate to sit on a table with Adam Henson at the Service Dealer Conference a few years back. Having built a rapport with him on the day, Adam and the Cotswold Farm Park have since become a customer of ours.

"Adam has now very kindly agreed to do a book signing at Briants on Saturday 21st April, between 10am and 12pm. He will be promoting his book, ‘A Farmer And His Dog'.

"We believe the occasion will be very beneficial to ourselves from a marketing perspective and we’re optimistic it will draw a lot of new footfall to our site."

On the day Briants will also be offering demonstrations of the Viking iMow and STIHL cordless products.

Scamblers, the dealership based in Bourne, Cambridgeshire, has invested over £70,000 to open a small, specialist hire fleet to fill a gap which they see in the market for East Anglia.

Ed Scambler said, "Over the last couple of years more and more people have enquired about hire. So we at Scamblers have decided to open a hire department offering a range of specialist machines for the hire to university’s, schools, local authorities, contractors and golf clubs.

"We believe the most exciting piece of machinery is the Chafer Grub Control System. We believe the system to be the first of its kind and think it's set to take market by storm."

One hundred years ago this week, on March 14th 1918, Deere & Company entered the tractor business.

Their success story started with the Waterloo Boy in the Midwest of the United States. Today John Deere is the world’s leading manufacturer of agricultural tractors, and the company produces ‘intelligent’ tractors in 12 factories worldwide.

The $2.25 million acquisition of the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company in Iowa in 1918 marked John Deere’s entry into the tractor business. This was a much debated and controversial investment at the time, as many critics did not believe in the future of tractors and continued to rely on the use of traditional horse power. Nobody expected that the tractor business would develop into the key foundation of the company’s growth.

The 27hp Waterloo Boy Model N (12hp at the drawbar), manufactured from 1917 to 1924, was the first tractor built and marketed by John Deere. The first John Deere branded, fully green and yellow production tractor was the Model D, built from 1923 to 1953. This became the longest production run of any farm tractor, helping to establish the company’s tractor success.

John Deere’s all-time bestseller was the Model B, with 300,000 sold from 1935 to 1953, while the 4020 became the most widely sold single model tractor, with a total of 175,000 produced from 1963 to 1971. John Deere became the tractor sales leader worldwide for the first time in 1963.

In 1956 John Deere bought the tractor manufacturer Heinrich Lanz, AG in Mannheim, Germany. With this acquisition the company expanded its manufacturing business into Europe for the first time. Lanz also had a long history in the tractor industry, introducing the popular Lanz Bulldog model in 1921.

In subsequent years John Deere continued to strengthen its position in the tractor business. After being the first company to offer power steering on tractors in 1954, another major milestone was the introduction of the ROPS (Roll-Over Protective Structure) as a safety feature in 1966, which set the standard for the entire industry. Initially available as an option in the early 1970s, the Sound-Gard body was the first dust-free, temperature controlled operator station, while the PowerShift transmission first introduced in 1964 provided John Deere tractors with better, more comfortable gear shifting and higher field productivity.

Today, the tractor is no longer just for pulling implements – instead, agricultural tractors, machines and implements can be effectively connected. For example, tractor implement automation enables a baler to ‘talk’ to the tractor for automatic adjustment of functions such as forward speed, depending on the workload.

Mobile data transfer allows farmers to collect data from drilling to harvesting and send it automatically to the farm office. Field documentation displays data from the entire production chain and increases transparency for consumers. Farmers and contractors can use this data to make agronomic decisions on fertiliser and chemical applications, for example.

The story of John Deere’s 100 years of success and innovation, from the Waterloo Boy to today’s ‘intelligent’ tractor, is being celebrated at the company’s worldwide tractor factories. Employees, their families and other guests have been invited to look behind the scenes of John Deere tractor production, and the Mannheim factory is holding a tractor parade through the city.

The John Deere Forum in Mannheim is featuring a display of vintage and classic tractors that have strongly influenced the company’s history, including an original Waterloo Boy, while the Forum’s shop is offering a variety of fan merchandise, such as a special edition 9RX tractor model, caps, shirts and mugs. Tractors ordered by customers this year will also carry a 100 years anniversary badge, and in addition dealers will have a range of special offers at favourable prices.

The 100 Years of John Deere Tractors anniversary activities can be followed on www.deere.com, Facebook and YouTube. More on the company’s tractor history can also be found here and at https://johndeerejournal.com/category/history/.

Organisers say that early indications for the 73rd edition of SALTEX are "extremely positive" after they reported another record-breaking loyalty period, stand upgrades and an influx of debut exhibitors.

For the third successive year, the organisers say SALTEX has seen an overwhelming amount of exhibitors re-book their stands.

With nearly 200 companies confirming stand space early, the organisers are pleased that the 2018 floor plan already boasts a strong showing of exhibitors, many of which have purchased extra stand space.

GKB Machines is one of those exhibitors that has significantly upgraded its stand for example. The company, which specialises in maintenance machines for sports pitches, took the decision to increase its presence at the show based on a successful SALTEX 2017.

Operations director Tom Shinkins said, “We’ve been at SALTEX for three years now and each year we have found it a great show to highlight new products and introduce our machines to the market. Off the back of SALTEX 2017 I’ve already been out to do a lot of demonstrations and have sold kit as a direct result of the show."

SALTEX 2018 will take place at the NEC, Birmingham on 31 October and 1 November.

Manitou Group, the manufacturer of rough-terrain handling products, has inaugurated its new R&D Test Centre.

Inaugurated in the presence of a number of elected officials, this new site is designed to assess the endurance and capacities of the group's prototypes. With a number of high-performance test benches, the models are put to the test for cycles that can last up to several thousand hours, the equivalent of the average life span of a machine.

The tests guarantee the robustness of the company's products from launch while reducing the development turnaround times. Several test robots and driving tests feature in multiple configurations among the tests performed. The test benches also make it possible to analyse the resistance of the major parts and a number of other types of components.

Begun in May 2017, the work, representing an investment of 1.5 million euros, was finished in January, 2018. This new space includes a driving circuit and an RT 2012-certified building.

Jean-Yves Augé, R&D director of the Manitou group, explains the purpose of such a project: “By automating the various test phases, we are able to accelerate the evaluations on our machines to provide our users with ever more reliability. This is about certifying the capacity and endurance of all our ranges and our future innovative products. We are fully involved in continuous improvement.”

One of the world’s largest power tool, garden machinery manufacturers & distributors is looking for an:

OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT SALES MANAGER

The role will be to manage the day to day activities of the sales team, working with the dealer and distribution network.

The successful candidate will need to have man management skills, demonstrate ability to cover this national role together with knowledge and understanding of the garden machinery industry.

If you are interested then please apply to: jobopps1959@gmail.com

Closing date: 30th March 2018

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