Spring has finally arrived. The recent warmer air and soil temperatures have spurred many spring flowers to come into full bloom and initiated a lot of activity regarding the maintenance of natural grass playing surfaces. 

Many turf professionals and volunteers are busy preparing themselves for the start of a new growing season.  With soil temperatures well above seven degrees, we are now starting to see some much-needed grass growth and recovery – which means the need to start some more regular grass mowing and feeding regimes. Cricket groundsmen are now focussing their efforts on pre-season rolling programmes to get their facilities ready for the start of a new playing season in April. 

Many football and rugby clubs will be organising their end of season renovation works and securing the relevant products and services they need to undertake the required tasks. Essentially for many grass roots clubs this is often centred on scarifying, aeration, topdressing, feeding and overseeding the pitch.

Spring flowering Narcissi 

Flying visit to Bristol

A recent trip to Bristol enabled me to meet up with four turf professionals who themselves were busy maintaining their facilities.

My visit was organised by Joe Hendy sales manager for AGS who was keen for me to meet some of his customers.  We started our day calling in on Richard Ponsford, course manager at Clevedon Golf Club, who like many greenkeepers was completing a number of winter works and spring renovations at his parkland course. You can listen to a recent produced by AGS featuring Joe and Richard that’s well worth a listen here. 

Richard Ponsford & Joe Hendy at Clevedon GC 

We then called in to see Ash Arnel at Bristol Grammar school, who with his staff were busy maintaining their fifty-plus acre schools’ grounds site on the outskirts of Bristol. After this we called in to see Chris Fox (Foxy) who looks after the training pitches for Bristol Bears, which is a fantastic modern rugby set up. 

Finally we called in to see Ben Ford, head groundsman at Bristol Rovers FC. 

Bristol Bears training facility 

All in all, the day was a great opportunity to catch up with some excellent professionals and find out how they have been coping with the pandemic and what challenges they are facing in in the coming year in terms of budgets, staffing, maintenance and machinery needs. I will be compiling feature articles on each of the four venues in the coming weeks that will be published in future editions of TurfPro.

Ego testing

Also last week I had the privilege to attend another press event that enabled myself and other editors / journalists to see the latest updates on three new products being produced by EGO.

In recent years we have been seeing the popularity of EGO battery powered products grow substantially. In fact, during my visit to Clevedon Golf Club I noticed they were using several Ego battery-powered products and their course manager had nothing but praise for their durability and performance.

The day was centred on informing members of the press about the launch of three key new products – including what they descrbed as a world-first for ride-on mowers, a new handheld leaf blower, and a new 40cm chainsaw.

Steve Roskell, marketing director EMEA at EGO, said, “EGO is at the forefront of a technological revolution in outdoor power equipment. Demand is growing for tools that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality, and enhance working conditions for the operator with no sacrifice in the performance of the tools. We are further expanding our product range in 2022 to continue to meet this surging demand.”

I got to experience the EGO Z6 which is the company’s first zero-turn ride-on mower that Ego described as unique in the industry, as it uses the same interchangeable batteries that power the rest of their garden tool range. By combining up to six of their 56V ARC Lithium platform batteries, the Z6 delivers the same power and performance as a 22HP petrol ride-on mower.

I was certainly impressed with the performance, power and design of this ride on mower. It was easy to operate and offers three driving modes and four-blade speeds, with easily adjustable cutting height positions between 2.5cm and 10cm. Operators can also choose to collect the clippings; side-discharge or mulch them. The mower can cut up to two and a half acres on a single charge with 6 x 12Ah batteries.

Alongside the Z6, EGO is expanding its Power+ range of chainsaws with the CS1610E – whilst completing the new tool range for 2022 is the LB7650E leaf blower. This offers a run time of up to six hours on a single battery charge. 

Ego have also introduced a new 12Ah battery and Professional Multi-Port charging case.

Joining six smaller sized batteries in the range, the battery is interchangeable with all EGO tools, and uses 56V ARC Lithium technology to provide balance between required performance and usable power.

 
Also promoted was the company’s EGO Challenge 2025 - their call to arms that has as it’s aim the desire to educate and empower both domestic and professional outdoor power equipment users to decide that the only logical choice when purchasing new gardening equipment is to opt for battery power. They said this has been their goal since their conception back in 1993.

I myself have been testing and using a number of EGO products and have found them to be very reliable, well-built and powerful, offering our grounds professionals another choice when buying cordless battery powered tools. I recently tested several EGO Hedge trimmers in fact, with a full report on these products to be published in TurfPro in the coming weeks. 

Finally, I'd just like to say that myself along with my colleagues from our sister title, Service Dealer, will be attending BTME week in Harrogate from tomorrow (21st March). I look forward to meeting and catching up with many of our turf professionals and exhibitors during the event.