Sidekick: STMA 2012 Innovative Award winner

For many years the industry has installed thick cut sod (up to 3″) by employing many laborers with rakes and using bulky mechanical forces (tractors, mini excavators) to push the sod into place. Often this led to tremendous payrolls or damaging the sod, which both cost time and money, as well as the sod not being installed to a uniform tightness across the entire field, or loose seams, etc.


Paul Carlson, president of Green Source, Inc., and designer of the Sidekick (patent pending) attachment for sod installation machines, was awarded the STMA’s Innovation Award for 2012 for this product. “So as not to require an additional machine on the job site, we needed it to be powerful and compact, mobile, and easy to operate and not require an additional operator,” says Carlson. “We also needed it to not damage to the existing grade and more importantly to the sod being installed. That meant it could not touch the grass. This was accomplished instead by using the ground force to keep the pushing edge completely square with the edge of the sod.


“By using the Sidekick Green Source Inc., now can install thick cut sod on an athletic field in a fraction of the time as before and the results are outstanding. We are compressing the sod as we install it by approximately 5%, eliminating seams and actually improving the quality of the sod. We have found Sidekick useful installing bent grass sod as well as regular cut sod,” says Carlson.


Green Source, Inc.