Our Saxon Mk II triple is great in summer, but in winter the worm casts become a real problem with mud on the cutter rollers. As the council contract only runs April to October I'm increasingly under pressure to cut in winter and this year even harrowing before cutting is not solving the problem of the casts.
Does anyone have a successful experience of fitting mud scrapers to this machine - I guess home-made is the only solution.
Photos of success stories - or your frustrations of the impossibility all welcome.
The ciderman rolls
2 Dec 2009 by Monty
Hi,
Why not spray for the worms instead, it will look a lot better and save you having to clean the mower rollers of so much, even with scraper bars on we still get small amount of drop off on the turf
http://www.pitchcare.com/shop/turf-chemicals-insecticides/agriguard-pro-turf-carbendazim.html
What budget have you set to?
It's a lot less bother with a hover!
2 Dec 2009 by green7
Hi,
You can get roller wire scrapers for the saxon which work really well.
Hi Monty, Spraying whole field not a real option sadly. I agree it would make things much better.
Green7 - When I read your post I contacted Baroness who sell the Saxon but they say there is no commercial scraper for the MkII - do you know whether the ones you've seen were home-made?
Thanks
The ciderman rolls
Send a PM to Torch, if he still reads the boards, he has experience with Saxon machines.
Regards
Steve
Don't talk to me about Contractors Wonka, I am one myself......
Jon....why is spraying the whole field not an option, is it size, or cost.????....in my personal experience with cutting in "not perfect" conditions which ends up with c**p stuck to the rollers, i never felt scrapers of bar or wire to be beneficial, i found they tended to collect the muck then drop it in bigger unsightly dollops....is the Saxon triple your only means of mowing, maybe sourcing a wheeled rotary might be a better option...
Ticky supports British farmers...!!
Hi Ticky,
Field is the village park and routinely used by mums, many pregnant, and their young kids.
Check out the internet info on carbendazim - just like they can - and then you'll inderstand why I choose not to apply carb across the whole field, only the roped off square.
It might be absolutely safe to get the whole field sprayed but we have to inform the playgroup of what we are spraying and I don't want the negative reaction when the village mums are told that the cricket club are spraying a suspect mutagen where their kids play, just so that we can cut the grass more easily.
The ciderman rolls
Do the play group meet during October and February half term ?
Bit of fungacide never hurt me. dum de dum dee didlly dum
What do I do? I just cut the grass.
Just point out that it' the same stuff that's in athletes foot creams.
Why then do we need coveralls, wellie boots and neoprene gloves to fill the sprayer and apply ?
Because it's NOT the same stuff as is in athlete's foot creams!
The ciderman rolls
I hope then Andy you do not treat yourself.
My mistake, although they do spray it on fruit and veg!.
Could have been a nasty mistake. Yes it is/has been sprayed on fruit, it is a fungacide. It has also been sprayed on cereals, but i believe that is no longer the case.
Was at your place earlier today jon dropped in en route from brigg to lincoln, see what you mean about worm casts! the amount you have it would take several applications to reduce them never mind getting rid completley. your outfield growth aint that bad in my opinion and even if you had scrappers on your rollers they would'nt work that well with the amount of casts and you would do more damage to your cutters cylinders etc and to the outfield than what it would be worth. Don't no what the answer to your cutting problem is, other than on a frosty morning knock the casts off so they break rather than smear and try and give it a cut mid morning. Other than that i can give you a contractors number get him to cut it and bugger his mower up rather than yours!
I'm hoping for a dry spell! The harrows break the casts up if they're dry, but if the grass gets too long then they don't dry properly. The o/f was cut about a month ago and is now getting to the length where I'd want to top it again.
It was harrowed last w/e to prevent the casts getting too big.
The square at least proves that carbendazim works though!
The ciderman rolls
Your square looked in good nick jon few bare areas on possibly your last tracked played on nowt to worry about anyway, not like brigg towns! a lot drier than most around anyway, at least thats one consolation with the soil your on it drains well, dropping spiker off to dave later this week providing i can get 1 more pass on mine hopefully its going to stay dry for a few days possibly will be on friday when i get it over to him so you may well have it next weekend.
Hi Martin
The track you mention (#6) is a funny one. Tracks 6&7 behave very differently to the others in terms of recovery. Both have a higher Poa content than elsewhere on the square and both prove slow to re-establish after end of season renovation. Track 6 was the last but one track used this year, 7 was used in June. 7 has recovered well after end of season work, 6 is slow.
I think I will switch to using both early in the season next year.
The ciderman rolls
Jon
Why not consider a natural product for your outfield like a garlic based product? Although it may not be practical in this instance (possibly too late unless you can clear the casts one fine day) but surely worth considering from a safety angle given the mums and kids plus pets angle which is understandable. With carbendazim going off list could be a future consideration on the square as well?
The light at the end of the tunnel is not a train
Is there a garlic based product effective against worms?? I would certainly be interested if there were a safe alternative.
The ciderman rolls
jontaylor,
Google ecosolve and check on " wormztat ", something you might like to try and give us the feed back.
jon/bath
There may well be another safe product which could be unveiled at a sportsturf show in Yorkshire in January
The light at the end of the tunnel is not a train
For anyone intersted....
I made my own roller scrapers this weekend for the princely sum of £2.40. They worked an absolute treat. I've now ordered three diferent grades of wire to optimise over recovered bike brake cables (yes - I never throw anything away which might be useful...).
The solutioin - 6 x M10 bolts cut down to ca. 60mm long. Each bolt fitted with a pair of nuts and two washers to fix the straining wire. Use these bolts to replace to ones holding the roller axle. Recover the locking nut from the existing bolts and use the new nuts/washers to grip the wire.
The key from my experiments so far is to control the gap between the roller and wire to about 2mm and to keep the wire tension high.
Suitable wire is about 30p to 50p a metre. Is it really this simple???
The ciderman rolls
13 Dec 2009 by Mike Last edited 13 Dec 2009
Jon - sounds like a very similar setup to what Sisis use on the majority of their machines. Good idea in principal to a troublesome problem. Only problem I had with this setup was back when I used a Sisis triple to cut the greens at my old golf club. If there was any moisture present, it left an unsightly trail of cuttings, but this was easily removed by switching the greens following cutting.
One idea which I have had in the back of my mind for years is to use a very stiff bristled strip of draught excluder fitted across the roller. I would cut the bristles very short to further aid in the 'firmness' of the bristles. I'll get around to trying it one of these days!
Mike
Then you will find the muck build up on the bristles Mike and fall off in bigger clumps when fully loaded.
14 Dec 2009 by Mike
Logic would certainly suggest so, Bath. What I have found though in the past, is that logic isn't always right - do you ever come across those anomalies that go against everything that common wisdom would suggest, yet still work?
In instances such as this, where little in the way of time and money are required, it might just be worth a punt - you never know, the results might just surprise you... although most probably not!
Mike
Please prove me wrong Mike, then tell me what materials you did use and where purchased, please.
I tried the garlic. It didn't work. I found that a load of frenchman had trampled the table overnight. Mind you, with the weather we have had they may have been looking for frogs.
Seriously, i heard about 7 or 8 years back about experiments with chilli as a lumbricide but then it all went quiet.
I even once tried a home made recipe i found on the 'net for stopping squirrels digging based on onion, chilli, garlic etc. (I was working on golf and bowling greens at the time). That didn't work either.
Just out of interest, does anyone know if we could just use an organic product like Garlic or would it have to be "approved for use" first.
What is the situation with Salt (Sodium Chloride)? Is it approved for use on turf or sports surfaces? I used to use it on hard tennis courts (maybe, allegedly, i think)
But then again salt is not organic.
Anyway, all this has made me hit on a great idea. I just went out and distributed 140k of salt over my table. I figured not only will it keep the weeds down, it may dry the worms out. Will let you know how it goes....
p.s. Don`t try this at home!
14 Dec 2009 by Mike
I'll get around to it one day, bath, and if successful you'll be the first to know!
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