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Are Superintendents using this new smart machinery?

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Jeff Schley:
Maybe I haven't been paying attention or this is just the USGA showing some next generation equipment they want to see utilized more, but was just tooling around on the USGA website and stumbled onto this video highlighting "equipment for the future". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lpaEttVipw&index=1&list=PLnU5qUEfww3cOAU8iTQTUpF5S4UqhXJka



* hybrid and electrically powered mowers/rollers
* fully automated mowers
* fully automated chemical spraying
* Sensors in all equipment that is tracked my GPS to show where each piece of equipment was that day
Is this actually being used and if so how prevalent is it?I would imagine there is a significant cost to upgrade to this new equipment, what is the break even point to pay for it over paying labor?
Cool stuff IMO, I thought the sensors and GPS tracking could actually keep tabs on your labor to see what they were doing all day and give you some feedback on their productivity speed wise or if they are napping. ;D

SB:
From my standpoint as an owner, I've yet to see solid benefits.


Electric equipment are quiet but don't go very far before needing charging.  We bought a bunch of greensmowers to assuage the neighbors but switched back fairly quickly.  This was 5 years ago, though, so the tech may have improved.  Can't speak to hybrid.


Fully automated mowers don't save a whole lot of labor because you need someone to take it from hole to hole and stand around in case it screws up.  Yes, they can rake bunkers, but the mowers are slower, so there's some wasted time.  The ones I looked at cost 2-3X what a normal greensmower costs and you need 2-3X as many because they are electric and can only cover a few holes before they run out of juice.  I'm sure they will get cheaper over time but right now the numbers don't work.


Automated spraying sounds like a terrible idea.  Unless you're talking fertigation which has been in use for a while and seems to work pretty well.  That said, I never hear of people retrofitting systems, only new installs, so maybe it's not that efficient.  If it was, everyone would have done it by now.


Sensors in equipment seems like a good way to waste a supers time to watch what his guys are doing.  If he's scheduling efficiently, has trained well, and has hired people who don't need micromanaging, he shouldn't need it.

Anthony_Nysse:

--- Quote from: SBusch on January 21, 2019, 12:40:52 PM ---From my standpoint as an owner, I've yet to see solid benefits.


Electric equipment are quiet but don't go very far before needing charging.  We bought a bunch of greensmowers to assuage the neighbors but switched back fairly quickly.  This was 5 years ago, though, so the tech may have improved.  Can't speak to hybrid.


Fully automated mowers don't save a whole lot of labor because you need someone to take it from hole to hole and stand around in case it screws up.  Yes, they can rake bunkers, but the mowers are slower, so there's some wasted time.  The ones I looked at cost 2-3X what a normal greensmower costs and you need 2-3X as many because they are electric and can only cover a few holes before they run out of juice.  I'm sure they will get cheaper over time but right now the numbers don't work.


Automated spraying sounds like a terrible idea.  Unless you're talking fertigation which has been in use for a while and seems to work pretty well.  That said, I never hear of people retrofitting systems, only new installs, so maybe it's not that efficient.  If it was, everyone would have done it by now.


Sensors in equipment seems like a good way to waste a supers time to watch what his guys are doing.  If he's scheduling efficiently, has trained well, and has hired people who don't need micromanaging, he shouldn't need it.


--- End quote ---


 The new, fully automated greens mowers are about the cost of a triplex, too and they can’t roll or verticut like a Triplex can, so....I don't think the demand is there yet for a lot of this stuff and none of it's cheap. The real eye opener is return on investment, whether it's an automated mower or GPS sprayer. Kind of like a Prius. Its going to be a while before you get your money back from the investment.  The mowers seem to be more popular in CA and the northwest. I know that California Golf Club uses them.
 

John Foley:
I saw some autonomous equipment being used / tested on some steep slopes @ Yale. First time I've seen it and it looked like it might have been a specific product for that environment.

Justin VanLanduit:
Europe is using more automated equipment than we are here.  I think the big issue here in the United States with a lot of the stuff is safety.  Unmanned machines with cutting units are making a lot of people nervous.  There are items that are breaking through like Tony mentioned, the new robotic greens mower probably the biggest.  Some guys here in Chicago have been trying them and have found there are still glitches to work out.  Currently they run off of sonar waves vs gps.  Wind and sound waves can mess up the signal thus messing up the accuracy of the machine.  They are now working towards gps guidance.  We jumped in to gps guided spraying technology in 2012.  We were in the market of replacing our sprayer and I felt it would be only wise to look at the technology at our fingertips.  Being a farm boy and knowing what gps had been doing in that market for the last several years so I knew it was possible.  We were lucky to find a group from NC which were using a farm based gps guidance platform and retrofitting to golf course sprayers.  We have now added a second unit to our fleet and we are very happy with their performance.  Initially the savings in product sprayed justified the purchase.  Now the accuracy and reduced time to spray is driving it.  We seen a 17% reduction in areas sprayed going to single nozzle gps controlled spraying vs boom controlled.  As of now I feel this is the only item on the market where you see a true ROI.  When you think that you could save 15k a year from not buying chemical wasted in areas not targeted it helped justify the expense of the gps equipment or reallocated to other products that maybe you weren't utilizing to their full potential.

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