Captain Chaos

At dinner last night, turning over the thought of yet another college struggling to find horticultural students, I posed the question to myself (but unfortunately voiced it out aloud):

“Why don’t youngsters want a career in fruit and vegetable production?

“What is so bad about feeding the nation that colleges cannot attract students and have to turn their backs on field veg, orchards and bush and cane fruit production in favour of small (fluffy and furry) animal management and equestrian courses?”

The answer from the other side of the table:

“Why do you need to learn to grow vegetables?  You just sow the seed or plant the fruit trees – and you have machines for all that – you wait and then you harvest it.”

What!  Has living with a hortic for nearly thirty years done absolutely nothing for my husband’s education?  Have I totally failed in conveying the intrigue, the science and technology and business knowledge behind it all?

Voice raised I start again:

“Soil science, crop and varietal selection, propagation, plant science, fertilisers, horticultural mechanisation, weather, nutritional disorders, pathology, diseases, pests, pesticides (selection, application, legislation), irrigation, pruning, growth regulation, harvesting, drying, freezing, storage, packaging and presentation, transportation, investment, accountancy, marketing… Oh never mind I’m going out.  What do you mean you were only joking – this is no laughing matter!”

He might have been joking, but it seems 99 per cent of the public have the same attitude.

It’s fully road legal, meets all EU regulations adopted by the UK in July 2009, has a high torque tier III 3-cylinder 24hp diesel engine and separate power-steering pump, boasts a fully electronic dash and maintenance-free battery, and features Hi-lift Hydraulics, a two-speed PTO, category 1 three-point linkage, selectable four-wheel drive and a diff lock for those wet patches. And it costs less than £6,000.

So, what’s the catch?

The Chinese-made Siromer 244E takes flat-pack self-assembly to a new level.  It arrives at Myerscough College, near Preston in Lancashire, in a metal crate complete with box containing hundreds of nuts and bolts, plus a manual (that could perhaps do with a few more diagrams for the less techy builder).  We enlist the help of agricultural-mechanics students and put the machine together.

Only six weeks in to their course, the students work hard fitting wheels, installing and connecting the battery, adding the weights, routing the wiring, joining cables, constructing the roll bar, sorting out the hydraulics and PTO, adding lights, handbrake, seat, steering wheel and finally the covers.

Enthusiasm, having got the better of us at one stage, saw us removing the rear wheels in order to fit the roll bar but generally the build went without mishap.  Indeed the most difficult part was unpacking the chassis/engine unit from the crate.  The manual suggests cutting through the metal.

We called in a forklift truck.

Finally, after six hours of labour, we turn the key.  A puff of smoke and the engine fires into life.  We drive it around the yard.  It really works.  And it was fun.

But you can be spared the engineering experience and still take advantage of a budget priced tractor.  Siromer dealers will assemble the tractor for you, for a fee.

I was asked recently what the highlight of 2011 has been for me. OK, this falls outside the scope of the usual Helpline column. But it’s nearly Christmas so here is my answer. The one occasion that left me totally speechless was when I found out where Everris (formerly Scotts Professional) gets its potash fertiliser.

Potash is wonderful stuff. It helps turf recover from damage, improves colour and promotes winter hardiness. It is a mineral and it is mined, under the North Sea. Dressed in reflective overalls, steel toe-cap boots, shin pads, hard hat and miner’s lamp, I tightened my belt – fitted with power pack, emergency respirator and identification tag – passed through two air locks and entered the cage lift.

Potash-bearing rocks were formed millions of years ago when seas evaporated and dried up, crystallising potassium salts into potash ore. The UK’s only potash mine is at Boulby, between Whitby and Redcar, where the mineral is mined by Cleveland Potash – part of ICL Fertilisers.

The mine was begun in 1969 and delivered its first potash to the surface in 1973. Today it has an annual production of 2.4 million tonnes. It also generates 0.8 million tonnes of rock salt.

It takes about six minutes to descend the 1,400m (4,600ft) shaft. This is the second-deepest mine in Europe. Then it is up to an hour’s drive by specially-adapted Land Rover or Ford Transit to the cutting face.

Salt is removed first – a by-product used for winter road maintenance and animal health – and in the process a stable infrastructure network of roadways is formed, along with caverns for workshop areas and kit storage.

It is a bumpy ride down miles of intensely dark tunnels. It is incredibly dry and the temperature gets warmer and warmer – around 36 degsC but with a peak of 45 degsC at the furthest reaches of the workings. Carrying bottles of water, the last quarter-mile is made on foot. Air is supplied at a rate of 290cu m/sec forced down by huge fans.

The potash is in seams averaging 7m in thickness. It sits above the salt layer and is accessed via ramps from the salt tunnels. Being much less stable than the salt, the potash “rooms” have to be strengthened by driving hundreds of long metal rods or roof bolts into the ceiling. Pressure from above and below soon causes the tunnels to close up.

The potash is cut by a 4m-wide horizontal rotary cutter – a huge beast. A flexible conveyor that cleverly snakes its way round corners and back the six miles to the shafts is loaded by an electric shuttle truck that carries the ore away. Above ground, the potash is recovered by filtration and slime floatation.

The mine works 365 days a year and employs 900 people. It is hard work in harsh conditions. For me, one day in the mine was enough. But it was an exciting experience and I will never be able to look at a bag of NPK without recalling the darkness, heat and salty taste of Boulby Mine, which incidentally also houses dark-matter research laboratories.

It may be raining but where there’s a machinery demonstration, you’ll find enthusiastic groundsmen popping bonnets and discussing mowing rates.

Around 50 groundsmen, greenkeepers and open space managers donned the wet weather gear to attend Burden’s Golf & Turf Commercial & Sports open day at Daneshill School, Oxshott in Surrey, last week – just as the heat wave came to an abrupt end.

But if there’s one thing groundmen like more than machinery, it’s listening to other groundsmen talk shop.  There was a rush for seats in the pavilion when Chelsea FC’s head groundsman Jason Grifin and the Hurlingham Club’s grounds manager Peter Craig took time to talk about their work.

Last week I was on holiday and managed (I think) to break a Guinness World Record.

In Hastings they had a competition for the largest number of pirates in one place but we in Penzance obviously couldn’t be having that and so on Sunday we smashed their record by 2500 assembling 8734 pirates.

Apparently Hastings sent spies down to check up on us and is planning to do another one next year – so I’ll be down there checking them out.

Other highlights included watching the International Space Station crossing the sky from my back garden quite possibly while they evacuated to avoid flying debris.

I drove around Cape Cornwall and saw an extraordinary greenhouse from the coastal path, full of display plants, but not a production-sized one. It looked odd facing America like that.
If anyone knows which one i’m talking about, do let me know – or send a pic.

On a more horticultural note, a memo to the organisers of the Arb Fair which I visited in June.

I think they should take account of which way the sun is facing when they’re organising the tree demonstrations.

Between around 11am and 2pm the sun was just above the trees so you were totally blinded. It was such a shame because you really couldn’t appreciate the rescues, lowering limbs and so on that were being demonstrated.

Other than that it was an excellent show – I can’t get over how friendly these things are. I could stand and talk to the arb guys all day long.

Another highlight from the end of last year was watching the installation of a mighty Teupen MEWP at Westonbirt Arboretum.

I’d never seen anything quite like it. Top of the range and top of the tree.

Even from down below you can see if someone’s struggling to position the basket in the tree or not. On the Teupen you can position the basket sideways enabling much easier manoeuvring. A lot of nice touches.

I didn’t get up in though.

I DON’T

DO

HEIGHTS.

 An interesting trip to the Countax Factory recently.

Things have changed at Countax since I last went. They’ve changed a lot of production systems and have got far less boxes of components standing around, and it seemed, far less staff.

It’s become a much leaner, just-in-time, pick-and-select system. Much more JCB-like. A bit like the paperless office. But it seemed to be a much better way of working.

Quality control seems much better as things are checked far more often.

I had heard around and about that the quality of Countax mowers had improved, and I can see what’s going into it to make that so.

See Countax product listings on Whatkit.co.uk

It’s been a while so I thought I’d catch you up with what was a busy end of 2010, despite the snow.

Built a path in Cambridge Milton college as part of the construction equipment kit test.

I find it’s better if you can do a real job rather than dig a hole, and have to fill it back up again – which is a complete waste of time.

The college needed a path building and students make good labourers.

It went great. Though it took week to build 150m’s worth. (150m is a lot longer than I remember). OK

so it was supposed to take a day, but we were short of daylight hours and not all of us were pros.

Er – on the upside we got a more thorough test than usual. And I was very impressed with the

speed of the Vermeer mini skidsteer. Take that over some open ground and you’ll have some

fun.

See Vermeer product listings and reviews on WhatKit.co.uk

I’ve been catching up in my last few blogs on the many and varied visits I made to shows and other horticultural venues during September and one was the Harrogate Autumn Flower Show where I came across something almost disturbing.

I noticed in the hall where they hold the flower competition, there was no smell.

It was a warm day inside an enclosed buildling but with your eyes shut you couldn’t tell you were surrounded by flowers.

So my question is this: Why don’t flowers smell any more?
(of course the answer to that is that they’ve bred it out of them)

I for one certainly miss the smell of flowers and I relish smells pretty
much wherever I am. It helps you know where you are, even if it’s a cow
shed.