Hi Wal,

I have stepped back from croquet this year but I looked after the Jamberoo lawns for many years and we laser-leveled one of the lawns about every 2 years commencing with our 3rd lawn in 2010.

Laser leveling is carried out with a special tractor which has balloon tyres (to not leave tyre tracks) and a grader blade which is automatically raised or lowered hydraulically by a photo sensor which detects a rotating laser beam from a fixed beacon.  The laser beacon is set off the lawn to provide a rotating beam at whatever angle is required.  Although it is called laser leveling, the beam does not have to be set level.  If, for example you wanted to have, say, a 0.5% fall from south to north then the laser beacon can be set to provide such a fall.

The sensor on the laser leveling machine detects the laser beam and raises or lowers the grader blade independently of any hills or hollows the wheels may run over.

The guy we have used says that he needs about 10 tonnes of good quality top dressing soil per croquet lawn (eg for about 1000 square metres).  The contractor we used recommends that the maximum soil thickness after leveling should be no greater than 18 mm in any area and the level accuracy is better than 10 mm.

I am not right up-to-date with the latest costs but 10 tonnes of high quality top dressing soil runs at about $70 per tonne (eg $700 worth) and the laser guy charges about another $800 so all up about $1500 on top of a normal renovation. (ie the lawn should be scarified, aerated and fertilised before leveling)

I am away from home at present but I could send you a video of the laser leveling being carried out on one of the Jamberoo lawns if you are interested.

Cheers

Roger