A fully automated, environmentally friendly mowing system for Bishop Burton College

Ripon Ground Care have recently installed a fully automated, environmentally friendly mowing system at Bishop Burton College, near Hull. The installed system supplied by Ripon Ground Care comprises of six robotic lawnmowers, the Husqvarna 550 EPOS Automower^®.

The six Automowers^® utilise GPS, meaning no boundary or guide wires were needed to be laid beneath the surface. This not only resulted in a minimally disruptive installation, but it's also a huge benefit for the grounds team when carrying out other turf maintenance tasks such as aeration, as there are no wires at risk of damage.

A shed for the Automowers^® constructed by students at the college

Each Automower^® returns to a central hub when finished, meaning additional electrical points at the side of the pitch were also not required.

The Automowers^® are fully configurable allowing the team at Bishop Burton to utilise them around their requirements, such as changing the cutting height, cordoning off areas such as goal mouths when being restored, and setting them to only cut at certain times of the day or night. All of this is controlled in the Husqvarna EPOS smartphone app, which is installed on the phones of the team at Bishop Burton.

As they're battery powered, the Automowers^® don't make much noise meaning they're able to work at night and whilst classes are underway without causing any disruption.

Due to the cutting frequency achieved by the Automowers^®, the clippings are so small that they drop into the grass sward putting the goodness back into the soil feeding the grass.

The six EPOS Automowers^® recharging in their base stations

When maintenance is required, a single request in the EPOS app can command all the Automowers^® to travel to a maintenance area the college have designated which has facilities for cleaning.

In addition to the EPOS app, the college have access to Husqvarna's Fleet Services™ desktop app, which gives remote management, tracking, insights, performance reviews and servicing reminders to help them get full benefits of the new system.

What's more, the whole system will be working off grid in the near future thanks to Bishop Burton's clean energy initiatives.

Craig Cooper, Commercial Field Support at Husqvarna, commented, "Bishop Burton is a forward thinking college using off the grid electricity and UK made machines to cut four football pitches, saving precious time for the ground staff, reducing noise and creating zero emissions.

Two "traditional" wired machines work elsewhere in the college already but the biggest advantage of the 6 new GPS machines comes from not having to worry about harming wires under a football pitch when penetrating the surface doing other maintenance work, like aerating. Additionally, it allows them to independently travel large distances and through small gaps to get to their work zones."

Contact us today for a demonstration on the Husqvarna Automower® range

Call 01482 631148 or visit your nearest branch.