American Nurseryman -Jan 2012

Vermeer Chipper BC606 In looking for a chipper our main goal was to not have another engine to maintain Our fi rst chipper was a Befco but it was not suffi cient for our needs since it only went up to 10 cm 4 inch diameter We tried a Vermeer and after less than an hour we purchased the unit It handles up to 15 cm 6 inch diameter trunks and is very easy to service We mulch all tree limbs and large brush The ground up wood is used as mulch on our 30 gallon and larger containers Find similar equipment at http www2 vermeer com vermeer equipment brush_ chippers bc600xl Club Car Carryall 272 We currently own about 15 Club Cars and have been very pleased with them They all have aluminum frames Ingersoll Rand gas engines and either a fl at bed or a bed with sides and a drop tailgate We use the carts to pull small orders and place on the cart we pull trailers for larger orders transport of managers employees and customers around the nursery The lifespan of the equipment is very good The engines are only rated for 1000 hours but with a 100 hour maintenance cycle we have stretched all the engines to 5000 hours or more The only repetitive repairs we have seen are brakes adjustments and some repairs about every 1000 hours also most of the front suspensions at about 2500 hours These carts have about the same reliability as our Kubota tractors Find similar equipment at http www clubcar com commercialbusiness utility4x2 Pages default aspx Tree Boss My Time Force Timeclock We have three time clocks in use that are polled by modem All of the time clocks are polled and the data is imported directly into our payroll program Timeforce is one of the few companies we found that would modify its software to match the parameters of the payroll program in use at no extra charge Timeforce is the second company we have used in 12 years When we replaced clocks and software about three years ago we switched from a barcode badge that needed to be swiped to a magnetic badge that is swiped across the front of the clock Bubco Sprayers We purchased the Tree Boss and used it for several years As we switched over to wooden and plastic tree boxes the Tree Boss became more of a hindrance than a useful tool We decided to combine the best features of the Tree Boss with a set of forks that worked well on boxes The most diffi cult part was designing a way to lock the boxes onto the forks to be tilted This problem was solved by custom designing a nylon strap with multiple loops for different size boxes The forks are slid under the box and the strap is placed around the box The hydraulic ram is then used to push the box against the strap and hold it in place Using the Super Forks we are able to lean trees on trailers as well as the Tree Boss did with pots and B B Find more at http www treeequip com treeboss html We use the Bubco tractor mounted sprayers for our pot in pot operation We have been using the equipment for approximately six years and have been more than satisfi ed with the quality of the equipment Find more at http www bubco com vineyard html tatv Continued on page 24 Find more at www mytimeforce com www amerinursery com American Nurseryman JANUARY 2012 23