'we want our fields looking good'

MAGSystem Delivers Superior Quality-of-Cut

MAGSystem MAGIC The revolutionary MAGSystem technology from Jacobsen replaces hard to remove and replace screws with dowel pins and a series of powerful magnets to attach bedknives securely to reel mowers. The MAGSystem allows you to quickly and easily change bedknives to match turf conditions for an unparalleled quality-of-cut everyday. - Revolutionize how bedknives are maintained. - Magnets and dowel pins firmly hold bedknife to backing. - Improve quality-of-cut; use sharp bedknives everytime. - Quickly change bedknives to match cutting application. - Fits most current production Jacobsen cutting units. - Foreign objects pass through the cutting process, reducing the potential for damage.

To say Paul Floyd experienced a bit of culture shock when he walked on the job would be an understatement. Spending his entire career in golf course maintenance in Alabama, and as a golf course superintendent in Georgia and Florida, Floyd was named facilities and operations manager for the City of Decatur, Alabama, Parks and Recreation Department more than a year ago.

“I used to be responsible for 100 acres,” he says; “now I’m managing more than 10 times that much spread all over a city of 65,000 people.”

Floyd watched as the sports turf industry surged forward in the 1990s, while golf trailed off. He oversees the care of 90 acres of highly maintained turf, including baseball, softball and soccer fields and 100 acres at Point Mallard Golf Course. Mowing parks more than triples that acreage. The department also maintains right-of-ways and ditches.

The staff numbers 70 people in summer and 45 year-round. A separate facility, Point Mallard Park, with an 18- hole golf course and two water parks, batting cage, soccer and baseball field, campground and ice complex, employs more than 100 in peak season.

“We look at each field and figure out what needs to be done,” Floyd says. “Grass, no matter if it’s on a golf course or a baseball field, has a tendency to act a certain way after 10 or 20 years. We maintain it from a cultural standpoint, so years down the road the turf is not too thatchy. We do frequent aerating and verticutting, among other practices. I take the golf course mentality and merge it with the parks and recreation mentality, and we come out with a better product.”

Choose MAGSystem

To cut highly maintained turf, the staff uses three Jacobsen LF-3800s™ and three Tri-King™ 1900s. Except for one Tri-King, all the mowers are equipped with MAGKnife™ bedknives.

“For us, the MAGKnives are a good thing,” Floyd says. “On a golf course, an operator leaves the shop on a mower, and if something happens, he has to drive back to the shop. For us, mowing a ball field involves transporting a mower on a truck. With MAGSystem™, if anyone cutting with a reel mower has a problem, he can pop off a bedknife, put on a new one and keep going. An operator could be on the opposite end of the city from us. He doesn’t have to come back to the shop and we don’t have to send out a mechanic. He can handle it on his own, and that saves us a lot of time. The magnets are strong enough that the MAGKnife doesn’t pop off easily.”

Floyd prefers to rotate bedknives as frequently as possible.

“From a reel grinding standpoint,” he says, “the MAGKnife is a benefit because with traditional bedknives we spend so much time with a hammer and screwdriver trying to bang off the old screws. It’s a lot easier to just pop off a MAGKnife and grind.”

Ball field supervisor Darrin Alen likes the MAGKnife’s quality-of-cut.

“We want our fields looking good, and the MAGSystem helps us meet that goal,” he says. “But the biggest advantage is easy maintenance. Because we can just pop them on and off, an operator doesn’t have to bring in the reel and go through all the trouble of taking off screws. And if a bedknife hits an object and pops off, it doesn’t damage the reel. We haven’t had many issues because the magnets are so strong.”