Vegetation Management – The Future
by: Richard Attwood
A long, long time ago (about 25 years actually) vegetation
management or scrub bashing as it is popularly known was done by fit, young
volunteers using hand slashers and shears. As time went on people took pity on
those now not so young volunteers and donated their old worn out strimmers to
be lovingly refurbished and given a new lease of life strimming the towpath. It
soon became apparent that domestic strimmers were no match for an overgrown
towpath.
Things were improving in CCT and money was available to buy
professional quality strimmers and hedge cutters. These tools have served CCT
well over the years and still have a very important place on the sloping
towpath banks and the vertical towpath hedges.
But the snag with strimmers is that they are labour
intensive and volunteers for vegetation management are in short supply because
of all the other interesting and exciting things volunteers can do. (Drinking
tea, putting the world to rights and generally skiving)
During the summer the problem is particularly acute as
volunteers insist on having holidays and others, who own narrowboats want to
play with them. Some have foreign holiday homes to play in. Summer is also the
time when the vegetation grows like crazy and needs cutting back from the edges
of the towpath so that the young, disabled and old people do not get stung by
nettles.
How do we solve this conundrum? Mechanisation!!!!!!
Bring forth the
Grillo GF2 Sickle Bar Mower.
The requirement for summer vegetation management is to cut
back the edges of the walking surface by 30 to 50cmish leaving the rest of the
towpath bank for critters and wriggling things to do what they do.
The Grillo GF2 Sickle
Bar Mower is the only reasonably priced mower with a cutting blade wide enough
to cut the edges of the towpath without the mower falling into the canal.
CCT have bought such a beast from Heming Engineering Ltd at
Broadway. It was recently delivered and Western Depot Veteran Volunteers Steve
Court and me (Richard Attwood) have been preparing it for a productive and
glorious future.
Following the all important writing of risk assessments and
method statements we took the mower for a couple of test mowings to establish
the best working practices. We have already got some ideas for better control
of the cutting blade height on sloping banks when the mower is on a level path. The mower we have bought comes with guides on each end of the cutter to protect
the ends of the cutter but the test mowings have shown that they do not stop
the mower eating chain link fences so there are more ideas for new cutter
guides.
From the use by CCT of all its various items of kit for
vegetation management it is becoming apparent that we are pushing the limits of
what professional tools can do. But the inventiveness of CCT volunteers is
overcoming adversity!
Having got the measure of the Grillo GF2 Sickle Bar Mower it was time to
use it for real. Where else than the most overgrown and most heavily used
towpath on Phase 1A – Ryeford Double to the confluence weir near Ebley Mill. This section like much of phase 1A has had little done to it this year due to a
lack of spare volunteers who enjoy vegetation management.
More importantly there was a lack of the Grillo GF2 Sickle
Bar Mower.
The dynamic duo (or the cranky couple) leapt forth to put
the Grillo GF2 Sickle Bar Mower through
its paces. Following a refreshing glass of squash and freshly baked cakes at
the Central Refreshment Depot headed towards Ryeford Double mowing as they went. In places the towpath had become so overgrown that very soon the path would
have been blocked.
The Grillo GF2 Sickle
Bar Mower battled through.
The cutter bars and front of the mower were completely
buried under cut vegetation but still the
Grillo GF2 Sickle Bar Mower powered its way through the tangled
vegetation.
At Ryeford Double the
Grillo GF2 Sickle Bar Mower took a well earned rest before the return
journey.
On the return journey the improvement for users of the
towpath was obvious. Can you tell which is before and after?
The whole job was done in 3.5 hours by two volunteers. Using
strimmers this work would probably have taken several people several days. Mechanisation is the answer to vegetation management with limited numbers of
volunteers.
That is until a robotic mower is developed which can be
controlled from the comfort of the Maintenance Managers office. Rumour has it
that the Western Depot skunk works is already recruiting a team of boffins and
eggheads to develop this machine.