Charterhouse School is using the versatility of the Imants ShockWave from Campey Turf Care Systems to work across multiple sports pitches at their magnificent 250-acre site.
The Surrey-based institute offers a varied sports programme that changes with the school terms and includes football, rugby, tennis, golf, cricket and athletics. Having to manage a site that offers all of these sports means having machines that are capable of working on different surface specifications, and this is where the ShockWave finds its place among other aeration machines for grounds manager, Lee Marshallsay.
“We’re using it on football pitches and rugby pitches, I’ve put it through the golf greens in November last year and it worked really well and didn’t leave any mess or cause any damage,” Lee said. “It got us through that winter period with heavy rainfall and made a real difference on a couple of greens that were holding water.
“You can resume playing straight away, you wouldn’t know it’s been on there really. We are a heavily used site across our 16 winter sports pitches and being able to work different areas of the site with different machines is massive for us.
“All of our aeration was spiking, so to now have the ability to carry out linear aeration helps us, we are on some nice free-draining soil, but we do have issues with some areas, and to be able to use a different type of machine for aerating that also creates extra drainage channels is ideal for us.
“The few troublesome areas have benefited most by being able to linear aerate through fracturing the soil a little bit and creating more air pockets down below the surface.
“You don’t want to keep spiking all the time even though you can go to different depths, it’s good to have the option of the ShockWave and work the different depths to achieve aeration using an alternative method of decompaction.”
“The Shockwave adds more strings to our bow so we can address any issue as and when it arises and include it for the general maintenance to avoid problems from developing in the first place.”
Previous experience with the machine and a period of time with it on demo at Charterhouse allowed Lee to build it into his aeration programme. Having the extra machine hasn’t only had the benefit of varying the type of aeration but also allowed himself and his team to work on different areas at the same time, which is particularly beneficial on such a heavily used site.
Revitalising heavily used areas is what the ShockWave is built for. It is designed to relieve soil compaction, improve aeration and remove surface water, all of which Lee has seen on his nine-hole golf course and winter sports pitches.
