ROLAWN, the Elvington firm which is Europe’s largest producer of cultivated turf, has invented a way of tripling the shelf life of its grass.

When used with the company’s specially developed Profresh, a patented and trademarked system, it is said to give turf two to three times its normal life span.

The process counters an age-old problem of warm weather “cooking” the centre of rolled-up turves, thereby considerably shortening its freshness.

At the heart of the new machine is an airtight vessel, which slowly draws the air out of the turf. The lower pressure has a cooling affect. A vacuum in the centre of the turf draws cool air into it.

Independent tests carried out by the Sports Turf Research Institute, a UK independent authority in turfgrass research agronomy, endorsed the claim that the Profresh system helped Rolawn turf to stay greener and fresher for longer, even in warm conditions. Profresh is the result of more than ten years development and collaboration with several leading universities, in the UK and abroad.

The key benefit to stockists is being able to extend the window of opportunity in which to sell the turf in optimum condition. This, claims the company, has been proven to result in increased sales.

Paul Dawson, Rolawn’s managing director, said: “In the future, this new technology will also allow us to package both full pallets and individual pieces of turf if required.

“This will give us greater traceability and quality control, and allow us to include sell-by dates, barcodes and branding on our turf.”