Picking up the pieces
1 Apr, 2009 By: Daniel G. Jacobs Landscape ManagementJeff Hile Has picked up leaves, pinecones, soda cans, beer bottles, cigarettes, paper, plastic and small rodents.
OK, the inventor of the LawnShark doesn't claim to, advise (or advertise) picking up small rodents, but in talking to him one gets the feeling that if a creature didn't beat a hasty retreat, it would meet a gruesome fate when the debris-clearing device passed overhead.
 A John Deere debris bucket makes quick work of cleaning up the heavier stuff winter left in the landscape. |
"It has gone in so many different directions in what people really want to pick up with it," says Hile, director of sales for LawnShark USA. "There are some people who want to pick up chicken manure and straw. You can thatch your lawn with it."
Debris management covers a wide range of activities, from spring cleaning and leaf pickup in the fall to clearing trees and branches from construction sites. And while there are scores of things to clear away, there seems to be nearly as many machines and attachments to do the job.
 The LawnShark can thatch lawns, pick up leaves and clear debris from parking lots. |
Handheld equipment
Blowers and vacuums are the stalwarts of the handheld debris management category. A variety of companies offer handheld and backpack blowers and vacuums.
Shindaiwa recently introduced two new gas powered blowers, a two-cycle model (EB802) and a hybrid two-cycle/four-cycle model (EB8520). Both come with a newly engineered backpack that increases operator comfort and efficiency, says Paul Wheatcraft, director of marketing for Shindaiwa, which recently became a division of Japan-based Yamabiko Corp.
 TheToro Co. offers a number of handheld blowers, but also manufactures tow-behind units, like the Pro Force blower pictured here. |
Shindaiwa engineers teamed with a university to do a study exploring how users wear the backpacks to figure out where the pressure points are on the body. The result was an ergonomic, easy-to-use system, Wheatcraft says.
"Our new model is actually a little heavier than the previous one," he notes. "Put on the previous one and then put on the (new model). You swear it weighs less because of the way it distributes the weight."
There is a quiet mode switch on both units that is set to limit the throttle, keeping the decibel level below 65 dB.
"If you're out in the open where noise is not an issue, you can (use) maximum power," Wheatcraft explains. "But if you're operating in an area where you need to restrict (noise), just flip the switch. You don't have to have your 'quiet' blower and your 'powerful' blower — you just have the one machine."
 Skid steers from Bobcat and other companies offer many debris-clearing possibilities — thanks to the many attachments that are available. |
Power to the pros
The Toro Co. offers four models of corded electric blowers and blower/vacuum/mulchers.
"On the cordless end, nobody's really been able to solve the problem of weight versus power on a blower," notes Matt Medden, Toro's marketing manager for handheld equipment. "Blowers typically require a decent amount of power to move air. It takes a lot of power to move those fans."
Toro claims to have the most powerful blower available, but it depends on what you're measuring.
"The market has tended — at least in the last five or six years — to compete on miles per hour, but it's the combination of miles per hour and airflow that really matters," Medden says. "We claim, on the upper end of our products, that we have the most powerful blower, gas or electric."
Another blower may offer more air speed, Medden says, but they can't produce the same "air horsepower," to use Toro's term.
And because they're electric, Toro's models tend to be less expensive and quieter than their gas-powered counterparts, he says.
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