Most dirt ever moved & Seed Drilling

[Adam Clayman]

Ogallala opened a brand new Soap Box Derby track this last weekend. (The nation's 23rd) While sitting in the bleachers watching the kids go quietly by I met a man who at one time worked in Golf Course construction. He said he was involved with the construction of Gainey Ranch and that they had moved ...are you ready....650 Million cubic yards of dirt. I was floored by that number and wondered if anyone had ever heard of a project moving more.

He also told me the story of how he got the  principle to accept his $500 wager that he could have perfect grass in two weeks on the bare spot they were standing on. It was an attempt to save the man from soding the whole place. He said he drilled in the seed and by the time the two weeks was up, they had already mowed that former bare patch twice. The man also added to the story that he had already ordered all the equiptment needed to drill the entire GC and as he stood there showing the principle the sod he had created the trucks were already unloading the equiptment he had ordered.

I had never hear of drilling seed, is it a well kept secret? Or is it common practice? Anyone familiar?

[Garland Bayley]

Sure works with wheat on the plains.  

[Marty Bonnar]

I had never hear of drilling seed, is it a well kept secret? Or is it common practice? Anyone familiar?

You'd have to be Living in the Past on an Aqualung, my Friend to never have heard of a Seed Drill, dear boy...

FBD.

[Garland Bayley]

I had never hear of drilling seed, is it a well kept secret? Or is it common practice? Anyone familiar?

You'd have to be Living in the Past on an Aqualung, my Friend to never have heard of a Seed Drill, dear boy...

FBD.

I was thinking more along the lines of living your entire life on Manhattan Island, but we know that is not true of Adam.

[George_Williams]

Adam- was that guy drinkin' when he told you this?  Really, maybe 650,000 CY, not millions.  I know the contractor who built it & he said no way.  Now, the entire development could have been a larger number- maybe several million, but not 650 million.  As far as drill seeding- that is the standard procedure for seeding large areas on golf courses- like fairways, tees, roughs- where seed  is used (not sprigs for hybrid bermudagrasses and such).  Some hydroseeding is done now days, but I would say 90 % of what I have seen in the last 30 years on golf projects has been drill seeded......

[Adam Clayman]

Hey, Thats what this website is for. To expand one's island.

I'm sure there are many other obvious things that I have never heard of and in the TePaul spirit, I will continue extricating them.

The dirt moved was for the whole project and he was quite certain of the number. I asked him twice!

[Steve Lang]

 

40000 acres, 10 feet depth moved = 645.33 million cubic yards.. sounds like cubic inches or feet and yards got mixed up..

I met a girl from Idaho once, hiking in the Tetons up at Lake Solitude.. her daddy had a 50,000 acre ranch, mostly cattle..

errrr
650 million ft3 = 24 million cubic yards sounds like strip mining

[Norbert P]

 Jethro Tull (1674-1741)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jethro Tull invented the seed drill (in 1701), the horse-drawn hoe, and an improved plough. Tull was educated at Oxford, England where studied law, he later studied agriculture during his travels across Europe. Jethro Tull inherited land in the southern part of England where he put into practice his study of agriculture.
His seed drill would sow seed in uniform rows and cover up the seed in the rows. Up to that point, sowing seeds was done by hand by scattering seeds on the ground. Tull considered this method wasteful since many seeds did not take root. The first prototype seed drill was built from the foot pedals of Jethro Tull's local church organ.

Jethro Tull was part of a group of farmers who founded the Norfolk system, an early attempt to apply science to farming. In 1731, Jethro Tull published "The New Horse Houghing Husbandry: or, an Essay on the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation".


(His name was later chosen by a rock band in the 1960's.  Ian Anderson (the wild-eyed leaping lemur frontman) claimed that previous to JT, they had many band names because they never got invited back for gigs so with each new name (apparently weekly) they became a new band. Finally, they were asked to play again and kept the moniker. )  

 "Blues were my favourite colour
  'Til I found another song
  That I felt like singing."

[Gary Slatter]

Wouldn't Gainey Ranch be bermuda grass? Never heard of drill seeding but I've only been around 60 years.
Maybe all that dirt was the whole project, golf courses, real estate, Scottsdale, etc.

[Adam Clayman]

Yes he said it was Bermuda grass and he said they built it all. Creating all the movement on what was a flat site.

I looked on their website but there was no mention of total acreage.

[Doug Ralston]

Ogallala opened a brand new Soap Box Derby track this last weekend. (The nation's 23rd) While sitting in the bleachers watching the kids go quietly by I met a man who at one time worked in Golf Course construction. He said he was involved with the construction of Gainey Ranch and that they had moved ...are you ready....650 Million cubic yards of dirt. I was floored by that number and wondered if anyone had ever heard of a project moving more.

Hmm, I feel I moved more dirt than that as a young boy on the south end of a northbound mule. But I reckon you were talking about golf course construction.

Ed Ault sent my some pix by e-mail of the construction going on at General Burnside St Park, KY. Looks like a whole lot of offensive soil is being nuetralized. Then, Mr Ault has wrought surpassingly well for us in other spots ..... so I have my hopes.

Doug

[Don_Mahaffey]

Adam,
I've been to Gainey Ranch and there is no way that much dirt got moved unless it got moved 20 or 30 times.

And as far as the drill seeding story, I'm not buying it if he claims to have planted bermuda seed and mowed it twice in two weeks since bermuda is a slow germinator. Now rye grass...maybe, but what puzzles me is Gainey is a hybrid bermuda that is only propagated by sprigs (vegetative parts of the plant)...so the whole seed story has me confused... I'm calling BS on the whole thing!

[Forrest Richardson]

Adam — Gainey was about 2.5 million cubic yards of earthwork. I recall that because it was, at the time, one of the most intense earthmoving projects in Arizona. (We moved 1.5 million at Coldwater Golf Club on 18-holes, so that is a close second. Scott Miller did about the same as Gainey at Kierland. Both Kierland and Gainey are 27-holes.)

At the Links at Las Palomas we moved a sand dune...to the tune of 1.5 million cubic METERS. That is about 1.8 million cubic yards. This was just for six holes...so that is a lot! It now looks natural and I am mum on what is nature and what is Richardson.  

have always wanted to use that smiley.  

I have heard stories of 10 million c.y. being moved in Japan. I believe Don Knott once did a project in that range. It amounted to relocating an entire hillside and several hills. Desmond Muirhead also had a few of these massive earthmoving exercises. But I cannot recall the data. I will drink another glass of vino as see if I can reach him.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Forrest,
Why did you move the dune?
Why not move the holes?
Cheers

[Adam Clayman]

I know enough to trust Don Mahaffey than Chaz Evert's uncle.

Since you'all know the project's site, is it remotely possible even if you include all the ground the 1000 homes are on? How about feet rather than yards?

[Tom_Doak]

Adam:

Moving 650 million yards of earth would cost somewhere around one billion dollars.  That would have to be a pretty lucrative development to spend that kind of money!

I could believe 6.5 million yards of earthmoving for a large development including a golf course.

[B. Mogg]

650 million cubic yards -no way, you could move the entire Hong Kong island 1 yard to the right with those numbers. 6.5 million would not be entirely uncommon in places like Japan and Korea where you are building on a mountain top. I have heard numbers like 30 million m3 for Mission Hills but that's for 5 courses.

[Forrest Richardson]

Mike N. — We moved the dune to play havoc with future generations of  GCA-ers who will be tormented at the very thought...besides, it will provide years of research time for enthusiasts at the Mexican Bureau of Topographic Data — comparing vintage coastline maps with maps from the 2005-2010 period. Oh, and also we needed to raise the estuary areas by 2-3 feet and the concave area developed made for a nice range.