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Bobcat Introduces TL623 Telehandler
Jessica Schwartz
Project EverGreen Highlights National SnowCare For Troops Awareness Week
As a national non-profit organization in the green industry Project Evergreen recognizes that during these challenging times, the need to help military families with snow and ice removal services so they can carry on with daily life is greater than ever. Helping meet that need is Project EverGreen’s SnowCare for Troops program that provides complimentary snow and ice removal services and peace of mind for the families of deployed military personnel. Together with program sponsor BOSS Snowplow, Project EverGreen presents National SnowCare for Troops Awareness Week — January 23-29, 2022 — to spotlight and recognize the valuable work being performed by hundreds of dedicated volunteers across the United States. “The need to assist military families serving overseas or on the front lines here at home with snow removal services continues to grow, and SnowCare for Troops will be there,” says Cindy Code, Executive Director of Project EverGreen. “With the ongoing and generous support of our thousands of volunteers and our program sponsor BOSS Snowplow, it’s our mission to continue to grow the program and provide the support that many families need during these challenging times.” Now in its 12th year, SnowCare for Troops has evolved into more than just a service to clear driveways and sidewalks of snow and ice. It’s a lifeline for military families in need to help maintain their independence and go about their daily routines taking care of family, work, and school. From across the industry, professional contractors, groups, and individuals volunteer their time and provide ...
Deere Debuts Autonomous Tractor
We’ve seen the rise of autonomous mowers, cars, and even snow plows. But now we can add tractors to the list! During a press conference Tuesday at CES 2022, John Deere revealed a fully autonomous tractor that’s ready for large-scale production. The machine combines Deere’s 8R tractor, TruSet-enabled chisel plow, GPS guidance system, and new advanced technologies. The autonomous tractor will be available later this year. Geared toward farmers, the autonomous tractor serves a specific purpose: feeding the world. The global population is expected to grow from about 8 billion to nearly 10 billion people by 2050, increasing the global food demand by 50%. Not unlike landscapers, farmers must accomplish their jobs with less available skilled labor, while working through variables like changing weather conditions and climate, variations in soil quality, and the presence of weeds and pests. The autonomous tractor has six pairs of stereo cameras, which enables 360˚ obstacle detection and the calculation of distance. Images captured by the cameras are passed through a deep neural network that classifies each pixel in approximately 100 milliseconds and determines if the machine continues to move or stops, depending on if an obstacle is detected. The autonomous tractor is also continuously checking its position relative to a geofence, ensuring it is operating where it is supposed to, and is within less than an inch of accuracy. To use the autonomous tractor, farmers only need to transport the machine to a field and configure it for autonomous operation. Using John Deere Operations ...
Contractor Equipment: Should You Buy, Lease, Or Keep?
To grow your business, you need the right equipment. Maybe it’s a new mower, a skid steer, or plow. While the need for new equipment is a good problem to have, it also comes with a few questions. Some of the common ones we hear from landscape business owners include: Should I buy or lease? How much should I invest in new equipment? What will my rate of return be on either option to maximize my profits? The Real Cost No matter where you are in your business growth, you must look at what you have today and where you’re hoping to go tomorrow. Consider things like: Can my current equipment do the job? Would additional equipment drive business growth? Is there technology available to improve operational efficiency? Thinking through these factors, an inventory of your assets, and an overall budgeting plan will help determine your best path forward. Here’s a real world example: Say you’ve got a three-person crew doing residential landscape construction. The industry average daily production is somewhere between $2,000 – $3,000 in revenue, per day—or about $100 in revenue per man, per hour. One way you can improve the revenue generated without expanding crew is to provide them with the most productive equipment. A skid steer is a great example. Whether it’s loading/unloading a trailer, moving materials, or digging, a skid steer is a multi-use investment that could feasibly save time every day. Let’s say the skid steer costs $850 per month, which to most businesses ...
UTVs: Equipment To Build Business
Utility vehicles are a growing product category for many segments of the industry, and can provide landscape contractors and facility managers with a versatile piece of equipment for their fleets. UTVs (sometimes called side-by-sides) were developed with work in mind, initially used in outdoor applications like ranching, farming, and hunting. Now, they’ve been adopted by industry and deployed on construction sites, college campuses, sports fields, and with their range of attachments, can be adapted to fit a range of use cases in the landscape industry. Use cases. Utility vehicles offer landscape contractors and a multipurpose piece of equipment that can work year-round. What makes UTVs such a practical addition to a landscape management fleet are the many attachments and accessories that these machines support. Depending on your needs, these vehicles can be configured as people movers in crowded stadiums, fitted with a plow or brush to clear snow along sidewalks and driveways in a city center, or kitted out with racks and a tank and used as a landscape maintenance crew vehicle on a corporate campus. An outdoor power equipment dealer or retailer can advise on the best UTV and attachments to purchase based on current or future application needs. Getting around. The customization for UTVs isn’t limited to attachments. These vehicles are powerful outdoor equipment, and can be equipped with winches, treads, and four-wheel drive to help them reach locations that can be difficult for crews to access by foot or with a large pick-up truck. First responders ...
Get Equipped: Trucks, Trailers, UTVs
Take a look at this assortment of Trucks, Trailers, UTVs and related equipment that can improve and add value to your professional lawn care and landscaping services. Truck LED Work Lights From Buyers Products Buyers Products Company, a manufacturer of work truck equipment, has released a multitude of new LED work lights geared toward both professional and recreational applications. The new lights, which include “edgeless” models that sport a sleek, modern look, are the latest additions in Buyers’ catalog of LED lighting solutions. The edgeless work lights are available as both stud-mounted floodlights and as combination spot-floodlight bars in a variety of sizes. In addition, Buyers also recently introduced options that provide multiple functions in a single fixture. From DOT-sized lights that serve as stop/turn/tail, backup and strobe lights simultaneously to floodlights that also include strobe functionality there are multiple new lights to suit vehicles ranging from ATVs to municipal vehicles. Mid-Size Pro XD UTV From Polaris The new mid-size model of the Pro XD UTV is designed for lighter payloads, tighter spaces, and comfort. The vehicle comes in two and four-seat versions with a capable 500 pound capacity cargo bed. Uses for the mid-size model include all-terrain and all-weather utility or people movement for applications like construction, landscaping, and facilities and grounds maintenance. Built to withstand tough duty cycles and daily worksite use, the Pro XD line-up boasts durability, serviceability, and safety features. The all-new mid-sized model takes the same purpose-built features that customers value in the full-size Pro ...
Group C Media Announces Exciting New Changes To The Turf Brand
RED BANK, NJ – Group C Media, Inc. today announced a series of changes to the Turf brand that will help deliver even more value to its audience and marketing partners. “Based on the outstanding success of Turf this year, we’ve decided to increase the frequency of Turf magazine to 6x per year in 2022,” said Susan Coene, Chief Business Officer of Turf and Co-President of Group C Media, Inc. “With this change, we can continue to provide our audience of lawn care and landscape professionals with the quality editorial content they’ve come to expect from Turf magazine, while giving our advertisers even more of an opportunity to share their products and services with them.” Christine Menapace was also recently named the new Editorial Director of Turf. With these changes, Group C Media, Inc. has sold the LawnSite and PlowSite forums to VerticalScope.
Plow Insurance That Kicks In Only When You Need It?
SnowSOS, a patent-pending insurtech platform for plowers in the U.S., launched open registration at snowsos.com last month. SnowSOS gives plowers and plow businesses a way to lower their general liability insurance cost to $99/month per vehicle with no annual commitment. This is achieved by giving plowers control over when their insurance turns on and off for each job via smartphone. Pinnacle Risk Management owner Mike Evans Caradimitropoulo created the concept after personal experience with an under-insured plower. “We had a slip and fall incident and property damage because a plow job was done incorrectly,” says Evans Caradimitropoulo, who also serves as SnowSOS CEO. “It was clear the plower’s policy lacked necessary coverage and the marketplace lacked an affordable solution for him so I created one.” Insurance premiums can affect client retention or simply be prohibitive for independent contractors. Residential plowers often jump through hoops to prevent clients from leaving for lower-cost competitor rates made possible solely by low or no insurance coverage. The same can be said for larger commercial operations whose premium can impact pricing, account retention, and ultimately their team. SnowSOS is designed to help level the playing field by improving margins and lowering a barrier to coverage. It also adds value to subs whose individual coverage can reduce risk exposure or future premium increases for the employing business. Plowers control coverage via the SnowSOS app by uploading a picture before and after the job. Behind the scenes is a platform business administrators can use to view fleet ...
Hitting The Road: Brine, Beets & Other Thanksgiving Treats
Chances are, there will be a lot of talk of brine this week. And while most conversations will focus on brining the turkey, landscapers in snow management think of brine a little differently. Increasingly used as a pre-treatment for roadways ahead of a winter weather event, brine is a solution of water and salt with a third ingredient thrown in to help the brine stick to the road surface. What that third ingredient is has become an interesting—and sometimes humorous—reflection of the geographic area in which it is used. In a search for cost effective and eco-friendly alternatives, brine recipes have come to involve all sorts of byproducts from the food industry, some of which may be gracing tables on Thursday. Reports of brine recipes since 2014 have included wine-making byproduct in Argentina; cheese byproducts in Wisconsin; potatoes in Tennessee; pickle juice in New Jersey; molasses in Maine and New Hampshire; and beet juice in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, and North Dakota. So far, it seems, beet juice has had the most “sticking” power over the years. In Washington, D.C., this year’s District Snow Team consists of 882 employees, a 296-vehicle fleet (including 120 heavy plows, 100 light plows, and 46 100% biodiesel plows), 42,000 tons of salt, 86,000 gallons of brine and… 10,500 gallons of raw beet juice. (According to a 2015 article in the Washington Post, the recipe involves 23% salt, 62% water, and 15% beet juice. The 2014/15 winter required 25,000 gallons of beet juice, a budget item ...
Snow Work And Staff Safety
This information from the Snow & Ice Management Association (SIMA) appeared in a past year on turfmagazine.com. The advice remains timely, especially as many contractors are facing lower than usual staffing this year, or have new employees on board who may not be experienced with the rigors of the work. Read on… Winter can be vicious to snow and ice removal teams. Long hours, tough climate conditions and the perceived snow warrior mentality to power through can literally be a danger to your health. It is tough to consider attention to health and wellness when snow is flying, customers are complaining, and there is no end in sight. But if you don’t, your crews can get locked into a cycle of poor nutrition, sleep deprivation and fatigue—all of which have been scientifically proven to have negative physical and cognitive consequences. Not only are there physical ramifications, but damages and injuries related to fatigued driving and poor self-care can be costly. Identify the major risks and seek better ways to mitigate them—break the cycle before it breaks you. Nutrition And Hydration Stopping for meals may not be an option during a snowstorm, so many rely on fast food and energy drinks to keep going. Poor nutrition can lead to increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and other long-term health issues. Plan in advance some time for your team to stop for short breaks to refresh, grab a healthy snack, and stretch. Require your teams to drink plenty of fluids ...
Fall Leaf Mulching
For those in landscaping, fall is one of the hardest working seasons of the year with shorter daylight hours, large projects wrapping up, and the tsunami of leaves which “need” attending to before the snows fall. But what if the annual ritual of leaf clean-ups was reexamined? What about a simpler method, with a better understanding of the entire landscape, that leads to less labor, more profit, and satisfied customers? The Why When it comes to fall cleanups, you tend to see a lot of young bravado on display. I say that with certainty because in my younger days, I was long on biceps, but short on wisdom and learned intelligence. Then, in 2003, while walking in the woods one day, I noticed there was hardly a sound at my feet. The leaves hadn’t started falling yet and there was virtually no leaf litter on the forest floor. I leaned over, looked more closely, and noticed the remnants of skeletonized leaves—and lots and lots of worm cast. Hmm, I had never thought about what happens to leaves in the woods? As a landscaper, leaves were something one got all pumped up about in October, something that had to be handled, literally, in the coming weeks. “Leaves are bad, I’ve got to clean them up,” was the mindset. Around 2000, I had downsized my business. Gone were the leaf vacuum trucks, the workforce, and most of the equipment, so how was I going to handle leaves with a body that wasn’t ...
