Leave no edge uncut

Toro first patented its Sidewinder technology for cylinder mower applications in 2000, with a second patent following in 2002 to cover all mower applications. Its USP is without question, its ability to move all decks 12 inches right or left from the centre position for a full 24 inches of travel, ideal for safely mowing all tricky slopes, drops and steep declining edges.

The Groundsmaster 3500-D gives the precision trimming you’d expect from a cylinder mower with the easy maintenance of a rotary mower. Its full-turn three-wheel drive system senses slippage and shifts the power to at least two wheels at all times, maintaining traction under tough, wet conditions. And with the aid of Toro’s side-shifting Sidewinder system, this machine allows sports venue maintenance teams to easily navigate obstacles such as posts, fences, bushes, lakes and ponds.

Groundsmen will be particularly interested in how the tyre tracking can be changed to prevent rutting and turf compaction in areas where the same patterns are mowed.

With a 24.8 Kubota diesel engine and 3-wheel drive hydrostatic series/parallel closed-loop transmission, the Groundsmaster 3500-D can also help maintain large green spaces with longer cutting cycles. Groundsmen with large areas to cut on their to-do lists can manage generous swaths – up to 3.5 acres an hour – with the 173cm width-cut capacity and those who have parks, cemeteries, woodland areas, pathways, verges and banks cutting to do, can rest assured that tight manoeuvres in tight areas won’t be a problem.

Close strimming from a large ride-on mower is nifty innovation indeed and means that now areas that used to need two different machines can be maintained with one – the highly efficient Groundsmaster. Areas that would normally have to be touched up with an extra piece of equipment or done by hand don’t need to be – saving labour costs in the long run. It’s no wonder this machine is so popular with groundsmen across the industry.