Brand new SISIS turf maintenance equipment has made life at Derby County FC's iPro Stadium much easier for head groundsman Nathan Scarff.

Scarff has recently been appointed head groundsman and heads a team of three groundstaff who look after the pitch at the iPro, which is fibre sand constructed with under soil heating and full irrigation.

Upon taking over his new role, Scarff wanted to make a difference and turned immediately to SISIS.

"When I first took over I was looking at making ourselves a little more self-efficient, so one of the first things I wanted to look at was seeding, more specifically - regular over sowing during the season. This is why we chose the SISIS Variseeder," he said.

"The nice thing about the Variseeder is that it is compact - we don’t have a lot of storage space here so we actually have it on a little trolley and we roll it under the stands. It’s a really good seeder and does a cracking job.

"We tend to use the Variseeder once a month. We just clean the pitch out with brushes and spikers and then we’ll put a small drop of seed across the whole pitch."

The SISIS Variseeder is a versatile and easy to use tractor-mounted seeder which allows variable rates of seeding, making it ideal for football, golf courses, lawns and amenity areas.

Thanks to its fast work rate, it requires little maintenance and has few wearing parts so overseeding can be done without taking ground out of play.

Scarff also uses the SISIS Javelin Aer-Aid 1500 tractor-mounted vertical air injection aerator. It has specially designed air injection tines to use the most air possible from the compressor.

"We use the Javelin Aer-Aid every time we get a decent break in between games and that is all about trying to keep the pitch regulated in terms of how hard and how soft it is," Scarff explains.

"The option of the air injection has proved to be invaluable to us. In a stadium environment we don’t get a lot of natural air movement or sunlight so the water movement isn’t particularly good.

"Unfortunately the pitch used to sit damp on a regular basis, so being able to inject the air helps prevent any problems like black layer. It’s also great for helping to reduce the compaction from using the heavier machinery on the pitch.

"In my opinion, there is no better root zone aeration machine than the Javelin Aer-Aid on the market."

Scarff and his team also use the SISIS Twinplay frame for general maintenance, adding different implements such as grooming rakes, spikers, slitters, rollers and brushes for complete versatility.

"For our SISIS Twinplay frame we’ve got a spiker reel, a brush and two sets of rakes which are used for general maintenance – whether it is cleaning the pitch out, surface aeration, or just to help control any algae or thatch build-up that we might get.

"The Twinplay will go out on the pitch pretty much after every single game.

"I’d highly recommend SISIS equipment – it’s very effective and it’s not been over complicated with hydraulics. They’re also really robust and well made.

"Overall they are great bits of kit and you don’t require big tractors to run them – with just a 20-25HP tractor you can utilise almost every bit of kit on the shelf that they have at SISIS," he said.

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