Hi I'm Austin from Allett Mowers and I would like to talk to you about the Scarifier cartridge which
is available in all our QC machines; that's the Liberty, the Classic and the Kensington
product ranges. This particular cartridge can be exchanged quickly and it's extremely versatile. It
is my favourite cartridge because for example I'm going to show you here grass clippings,
nice green grass clippings that have been mown with a standard cylinder,
nice clean cut but of course it's all live material but I've already prepared here a
sample of material that's just been brought out with this scarifier cartridge. The spring
tines flick deep into the sward and so you bring out the dead material which is going
to form thatch. That thatch level layer will absorb fertilisers, will absorb our water,
will prevent the roots of the plant going down deeper for the water because the water is sitting
on the thatch and the surface and it will cause all sorts of problems so get it out of the sward,
get it into the grass box, get into the wheelie bin and you will end up with a much better sward
all together. Of course by taking the brown out of this the lawn the lawn will look greener anyway so
that will give us a better result but the other thing that this cartridge will do and the reason
I like is because it does all these different tasks where I've got Yorkshire Fog for instance
where the grass plant lies down flat and yellow in my sward if I give it a treatment with this
down at zero down at S the lowest level that we can then it will agitate and trafficise
that Yorkshire Fog and it really doesn't like it. Whereas the finer grasses that we really do
want to keep they actually are stimulated by the treatment that this scarifier cartridge gives.
So the two piles of material; grass that's cut with a cylinder and the material that's been
brought out of the bottom of the sward with the scarifier cartridge. The scarifiers also standing
the grass upright so it presents correctly ready for striping and laying down but I can also use
this for high-traffic situations where I want to free up the grass sward and I want to get the
weed grasses standing upright so that I can mow off their heads. So that complete versatility of
this cartridge is really the winner for me. We have other cartridges; Verticut and Dethatcher
cartridges which are used for cultivation and they do have a slightly different jobs as well but this
one for me is just the greatest versatility. Our recommendation for how often to use this scarifier
cartridge is really as often as you like. At least once a month, you can be using this once
a week but by removing this dead material out of the grass your lawn will just get better and
stronger and more disease-resistant, use less fertilisers or the fertiliser you use will be
more effective. So use it at your heart's content my word of warning is make sure there's moisture
there and make sure there's nutrients because you are hurting the plant and it does need
to recover but it will certainly make the grasses that you want grow stronger and the
grasses that you don't want get weaker and that's exactly the environment we're trying to create.