T.G Groundcare Turn To The Amazone Overseeder For Help
As the playing season comes towards the end, the intensive use of sports pitches has started to take its toll and the inevitable wear and tear is starting to show. The huge bare areas especially around the goal mouths, centre spots and side lines will need some TLC and so it is time to start considering your post-season maintenance programme.
Pulling up a complete or even part of a complete pitch and re-seeding is both a time consuming and, above all, a very expensive job and if possible needs to be avoided at all costs. These days, we also have to consider the quick turnaround time required as the close season now seems to get shorter and shorter. This makes a total renovation, more often than not, totally out of the question as we have to get the pitch ready to play on again by late summer.
The alternative? Overseeding with an Amazone GBK, where the unique reciprocating action of the REG PTO-driven harrow carefully loosens the soil surface, teases the existing sward out of the compacted top zone and gives it a new lease of life. The areas devoid of any grass at all are left with a beautiful layer of friable, fine tilth, ideal for establishing the new plants. The seed box, which sits on the rear screen roller, can be quickly and accurately calibrated for any desired seed rate, from nothing, right up to 60 grams/m² on a single lever setting. The seed cascades down a chute and distributed over the full width to give a lovely carpet of seed with the depth of seeding being controlled by simply moving the chute either backwards or forwards to decrease or increase the depth. Also acting as a depth control for the reciprocating harrow, the following screen roller gently consolidates the soil surface over the seed but leaves a semi-open top to avoid capping and erosion through wind and water. The result?
‘Staggering’ says Terry Grimes, director of T.G. Groundcare ‘At the end of last season, we were faced with such a nightmare at Burnham Ramblers stadium in Essex and on the advice of Joe Weston, Groundcare manager at Amazone Ltd, we tried the 1.5 metre GBK and the before and after pictures speak for themselves and to coin a well known phrase, it does what it says on the tin! I would never have believed in possible to rejuvenate so effectively what looked to be a lost cause’. That belief lead to the purchase of a unit for this year.
And with regard to flexibility? There is more to the GBK than meets the eye; strip off the Overseeder tine bars and you can replace them with a brush kit for hard court or artificial turf maintenance or fit with solid bars for reseeding road embankments, park areas, wild flower meadows, lawns, etc, etc. Strip off the reciprocating harrow completely, and its only a couple of bolts, and replace with a stone burier that can offer the ultimate in one-pass levelling, burying stones and rubbish, consolidating and seeding in one pass, what more can you want?
Take a look at the Amazone GBK overseeder in more detail