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Specialist contractor GVA has turn out to be the primary UK buyer for a brand new, environmentally-friendly mowing head designed to guard bugs and different creatures.
The ECO 1200 plus head was developed by Mulag and delivered by South Cave Tractors, the German producer’s agent within the UK. It has now been fitted to the PTO-operated Mulag SB600 suction mower that Halifax-based GVA has been utilizing since 2019.
Each the suction mower and ECO1200 mower head have been equipped by South Cave Tractors, of Brough, East Yorkshire, as was the Mercedes-Benz Unimog on which it’s mounted. The 4×4 automobile pulls a Harsh drawbar trailer with grass assortment field.
Inexperienced areas from which minimize grass has been eliminated turn out to be more and more nutrient-poor, which in the long term results in an uplift in biodiversity amongst vegetation and bugs.
South Cave Tractors Managing Director Tony Levitt explains: “The ‘minimize and acquire’ set-up being utilized by GVA was already supporting sustainability by sucking up the minimize grass, then scarifying the bottom prepared for planting with wildflower seeds.
“Mulag’s ECO head expertise takes environmental compatibility to a different stage, by extracting significantly fewer bugs than different, extra standard tools.”
GVA will probably be deploying the mowing and assortment system on motorway and main A-roads all through northern England this spring, when it turns into a direct provider of ecology and landscaping works companies to Nationwide Highways. Biodiversity is a prime precedence for the Authorities-owned firm, which modified its identify from Highways England final 12 months, and would-be suppliers are inspired to display their means to ship environmental positive aspects.
The ECO 1200 plus head encompasses a disc mower, forward of which a mechanical scourer is fitted. The scourer ‘chases up’ bugs sitting within the grass earlier than the minimize materials is sucked up from above. The mower has a 1.2m reducing width and likewise employs ‘sensor rollers’ that provide lowered floor contact and thereby present extra safety than a traditional urgent curler.
The reducing floor of the brand new disc blades is roughly 50 instances smaller than that of a flail mower, which is extra generally used to undertake such work. As ecology consultants have discovered that reducing heights above 10cm tremendously improve the probabilities of survival for creatures dwelling in and on the grass, the ECO 1200 plus head is designed to chop no decrease than this.
Checks carried out by the College of Tübingen’s Institute of Evolution and Ecology confirmed that compared with a typical mower, operation of the Mulag ECO 1200 plus ends in a discount of between 20% and 80% in losses of spiders and most insect teams. Importantly, these checks centered solely on the mower and never additionally the scourer, so the potential advantages of the entire unit may very well be considerably greater.
Tony Levitt continues: “Lower grass that’s left on the bottom merely encourages the expansion of but extra grass. However in the event you acquire the cuttings on the identical time you’ll progressively take away the nitrogen content material, so the grass backs off and makes method for wildflowers to come back via, particularly if the world has been seeded.
“Useless grass that’s merely left to rot may construct up the financial institution of soil over time. As a end result the water can’t run off the highway floor in periods of heavy rain, which is an apparent security hazard for motorists.
“There’s one other potential environmental profit too, in that grass that’s been minimize and picked up in late summer season after which left to die away over the winter releases methane. This could then be become vitality, which is already taking place in amenities the place they know the grass has been correctly minimize and doesn’t comprise any pollution. So the extra we clear up the edges of our largest and busiest roads, the extra usable the grass will turn out to be.”
Tony concludes: “With its distinctive, side-arm idea, the Mulag SB600 minimize and acquire system is ideally suited to roadside work. Fitted with the brand new ECO head it will possibly play a key position in selling biodiversity by serving to to ascertain and keep ‘corridors’ of wildflowers and inspiring bees, butterflies and different pollinating bugs to flourish.”
Underneath the brand new contract which begins on 1st April, GVA will probably be sustaining the verges of motorways and A-roads in Nationwide Highways’ Space 10 (masking Merseyside, Cheshire and Larger Manchester), Space 12 (Yorkshire and Humberside), Space 13 (Cumbria) and Space 14 (Northumberland Tyne & Put on, Durham and North Yorkshire).
GVA Industrial Director Luke Kendall provides: “Roadside corridors characterize an awesome alternative for the conservation and safety of bugs. That is an space by which GVA already has intensive expertise, not least via our work on a Cumbria Wildlife Belief mission that entailed the administration of habitats for declining wild bee populations.
“We highlighted our operation of the Mulag minimize and acquire mowing system in our profitable tender to Nationwide Highways – the ECO head is a priceless new software that can additional help us in assembly its biodiversity targets. We stay up for deploying this spectacular expertise in assist not solely of Nationwide Highways, but additionally of different clients.”
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