Entire hole capped with 3 feet of sand?

[Chip Gaskins]

so bringing this back to Pacific Dunes for a moment.  are you guys saying i could go right down on the beach off the left side of 13 and get "pure" sand (nothing else mixed in with it) cart it up the hill, put it in the fairway and grow grass?  who knew?

how come grass doesn't start growing throughout the huge bunker on the right side of 13 if it so conducive?

i assume different grasses do better in pure sand...bermuda and blue grass would struggle, no?

what was Seminole built on?  that would be bermuda grass and potential pure sand.  Maidstone i assume could be pure sand.

i am just fascinated you could pack "pure" sand tight enough to be fairway firm AND grow closely mown grass.

[TEPaul]

No Chip, I don't think anyone is saying you can grow grass on just straight sand. Read the previous posts again.

[Joe Hancock]

JohnH....irrigation compensates for the lack of retention.

Hi T :)m.

Hi J ;)e.

I realize that Paul, thanks.  I subscribe to the less is more when it comes to irrigation.

Good. You're in the Club......

 

[TEPaul]

Actually Chip, if you want to see WHAT does and can grow on just straight sand, I will put you in touch with the Florida Dept of Parks.

There's the most fascinating stretch of about five miles of straight sand dunes and blowouts on either side of A1A above the Jacksonville Naval Base in a state park on Talbot Island.

The park rangers down there track all the plant life that can and does survive in that environment out there that they refer to as basically zero nutritional.

It's some pretty interesting stuff and some of it is very ruggedly beautiful but I can guarantee you none of it is what anyone on here would want to play golf off of.

[paul cowley]

Gee guys I would love to continue, but I have to go to Kansas City shortly....but;

You CAN grow grass in pure sand...you can grow grass in marbles.....you can even grow grass without anything except for water and nutrients [hydroponics....but its hard to get the flag to stand up on a hydroponic course].

In pure sand that is not as 'sharp', and doesn't pack as well....the roots themselves eventually provide the aggregate or binding matter that holds the turf together.

JohnH....I am glad we agree that less is more when it comes to watering.

Bermuda loves pure sand.

Paspalum seems to love it even better....I am beginning to think that paspalum is some kind of bermuda on steroids!

Later...

[JohnV]

Usually it's trucked in.
At Spanish Bay they set up a conveyor belt to eliminate trucks zooming through the area.

There is a rule that no more than 3 trucks per day are allowed into the Del Monte Forest for any project.  To cover an entire course in sand would take a tremendous about of pre-staging of sand so the conveyor made a lot of sense for them.

[TEPaul]

".....you can even grow grass without anything except for water and nutrients [hydroponics....

PaulC:

Is that right?

Well, I guess that might explain WHY America completely over-irrigated their golf courses for about fifty years. Somebody probably heard about hydroponics in the American golf agronomy business and the rest is history!

[Kalen Braley]

I know this is true for plants.

My wife has several plants in the kitchen that aren't potted at all.  They just sit in vases with marbles and rocks on the bottom.  Obviosult she keeps water in the vase and every now and then squirts some kind of nutrient solution in there.  They have been going strong for over 10 years now.

[Steve Lang]

 

Sand haiku..

Drainage drainage drainage..

the water balance supports agronomy..

carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and some minerals support agronomy..

water in minus water out = accumulation..

3 feet of sand allows for various things to be provided:

1) removal from surface (percolation)
2) storage (porosity)
3) transmissivity (permeability)

I'd ask Tom Doak: "Where were you trying to get the infiltration water to?  How much were you trying to retain for sustaining turf?  Was a perimeter or other drainage path impossible or unwanted?"

[Steve Okula]

Drainage drainage drainage..


"3 feet of sand allows for various things to be provided:

1) removal from surface (percolation)
2) storage (porosity)
3) transmissivity (permeability)"

end quote

I repeat my question;

What does three feet of sand provide that one foot doesn't?

One foot of sand would allow plenty of percolation and permeability, if those words aren't synonymous. I wasn't aware that sand had a lot of storage capacity.

[paul cowley]

Steve....I am building a course south of California in a large dune system somewhat similar to the sand conditions I observed at Pac Dunes.....up to 160' of pure sand in places.

Prior to construction we soil tested about 25 areas and it was determined that wherever the dunes sands existed we needed no soil amendments or drainage.....essentially most of the site naturally consisted of perfect California style greens soils and profiles.

There were three holes that were more alluvial in nature...they had a fine, silty clay composition, but still had a high perc rate, but water shed more than the dunes sands.

It was determined that if we capped the soils with at least 3' of the dunes sand we would not have to worry about subsurface drainage rates and also ensure that the soils would be similar throughout the course for the growth of the turfgrass.

As it stands now there is not one piece of ADS drainage pipe on the entire site, nor do we expect to use any.

The water percs throught the 3' layer until it hits the heavier one and then moves on.....I don't feel we could combine the rootgrowth and drainage layers in something as small as 12".

[David_Elvins]

Barnbougle Dunes is 100% sand (some fairways were capped) they did add some nutrients (I don't know how much and I don't know if it was on only the greens and surrounds) I doubt it was a lot.

Philippe,

I am sure you know more about Barnbougle than me but the story I remember hearing from one of the people involved was that one of the very early conceptual budgets (before the agronomists or architects were heavily involved) was way too low because it hadnt allowed for the cost of nutrients etc. needed to get grass to grow on the sand dunes. ie. the cost was significant.

Hopefully someone involved in the project can chime in.  It is an interesting topic.  

[Tom_Doak]

Gentlemen:

You do realize that nearly every green built in the last thirty years has been built on sand with some soil amendments, don't you?

Do you have any reason to believe that the same thing wouldn't work on a fairway, or wall to wall?

We made significant soil amendments at Pacific Dunes and Barnbougle (and Lost Dunes and Sebonack and Ballyneal), but we certainly didn't truck in topsoil or anything like that ... that would make a mess of the percolation rate.  What you need is enough starter fertilizer to get the turf going ... chicken manure and fish guts are often used for this.

Minimalism helps.  You don't need nearly as much fertilizer in the areas you haven't torn up and re-graded, because the soil biology is still intact in those areas, but when you have to cap sandstone with three feet of dune sand, it does require a fair amount of chicken poop.  Fescue, of course, responds far better to these lean conditions than other grasses might.

As to the question of why three feet, Dave Wilber could answer this technically much better than I can, but I do know that the depth of sand cap can vary significantly depending on the materials and the exact makeup of the sand.  If you are sand capping an entire rocky or clay site (such as in Bend, Oregon), you will lay herringbone drainage under the whole fairway, so you only need 12-18 inches of sand for a growing medium.  (Most developers can't stomach the $$ for more than 12 inches, and may even try to go less, but they sometimes get wet conditions as a result.)  At Pacific Dunes, though, we weren't doing herringbone drainage underneath ... we just drained the pockets ... so we needed enough depth for the water to freely drain down into the profile a ways before it sat on rock.

David E:  Probably that was Greg Ramsay's "early budget" at Barnbougle that you're referring to.  Greg was trying to make the numbers fit what he could raise himself.  I can assure you that Dave Wilber and John Sloan and Bruce Grant all told Richard Sattler exactly what it would take to grow grass there, even though he might not have believed them to begin with.  And, Chip, that 18th fairway was as close to pure beach sand when we built it as anything I've ever worked on; I spent a couple of nights out there shaking my head thinking what Walter Woods would have told me our chances were, but there's grass after all.

[David_Elvins]

Thanks Tom, but you have ruined my attempt to try to get the point across without dobbing anyone in directly.    

Generally, what sort of additional costs do you expect to spend on nutrieints for a project on pure sand such as the ones you mentioned?

Thanks.

[paul cowley]

....about 17% more.

[David_Tepper]

Watching this week's EuroTour tournament from the Middle East (Abu Dhabi, I think), it is rather obvious the grass can growth quite nicely (and VERY green) in the desert, where I am guessing the sand is 5' to 10' deep.  Does anyone know if any "soil amendments" were/are added when courses get built in this part of the world?

[Adam Clayman]

Here's a photo I hadn't seen until yesterday. Thanx to Larry Kelto

[Chip Gaskins]

And, Chip, that 18th fairway was as close to pure beach sand when we built it as anything I've ever worked on; I spent a couple of nights out there shaking my head thinking what Walter Woods would have told me our chances were, but there's grass after all.

thanks for the info.

tom doak said, the sand did need "significant soil amendments" "like fish guts or chicken manure" for nice grass to grow and listed about 5-6 courses he built that did.
 
however

paul cowley said, "wherever the dunes sands existed we needed no soil amendments"

is it just a site by site determination on whether the local sand is good enough to sustain grass with out amendments?

[Tom_Doak]

Chip:

I think Paul must be calling the chicken poop "fertilizer" instead of "soil amendments".  I guarantee you he's got a bucketful of it, or something else of similar origin.

Adam:

Hard to see that picture, but I think it's snow, not sand.  I think we had grass planted on the first couple of holes before we had torn up the last couple.

[paul cowley]

Chip....Tom is correct.
I was referring to additional soil amendments or additives that sometimes are required to help growing conditions.....ie, blending peat, topsoil, fired clay ceramics etc, with the existing soil.

The use of various fertilizers to grow grass is a requirement.....or required amendment.....but I don't think that's the point of this discussion.

[Greg Cameron]

Gentlemen,Here in Vancouver(the wet coast)most new courses and major renos are sand capped,drainage-drainage- drainage.One unmentioned benefit is finishing costs,as generally fairway capping sand can be found that doesn't require screenig,so the subgrade does need extensive stick and rock picking.Ballpark costs approx.1 mill$ 18 holes,well worth it for winter golf........Greg

[J Sadowsky]

Mmmmm, fish guts  

[Forrest Richardson]

Steve O. says: "Straight sand can support good turf, but much better is to add 10-20% of organic matter. This allows the root zone to retain moisture, hold nutrients, and develop a population of beneficial micro-organisms. U.S.G.A. green specs call for organic amendments, not straight sand."

This might be taken by some here as being the gospel. I am not sure Steve meant that, but I take exception with nearly every part of this statement. It is not that the statement cannot be true...it can. But, generally, it would NOT be a good rule of thumb to follow this advice. (My apologies to the USGA.)

While Steve's statement can be true for some regions and sites, it can also be a problem to follow this advice.

Organics are naturally added to the medium by the on-going death of roots. When you artificially add organics at the beginning, it is the pursuit of an exact percentage of organics that can be so difficult to attain. And, if you miscalculate and add too much — even if you thought 15% was right, you are in for a long term of problems. It is the same situation when one makes chili — add too many hot peppers and you have no choice but to make more chili. Of course we cannot do that in a green. Once the organics are in we can only remove plugs and try and deplete the excess. It is not ideal when this occurs.

Micro-organisms can be good...and yet they can also be troublesome. It is difficult to get fungus and disease to grow in pure sand mediums. In older greens they flourish — and they also flourish in newer greens that have been mismanaged or were built with (drum roll........) too many organics.

At greens especially, organics are the "root" of nearly all problems. Rarely have I ever seen (27 years) any green that is shy of organics become too much of a problem to get resolved. The opposite, however, is never true. Greens that are plugged with organics — even a wee bit too much — are messes to rectify.

Thought: With modern irrigation systems the green surface area of a course is 4-5 acres. This is not where I recommend focusing water savings. Rather, get the water to drain out as quickly as reasonable and manage the moisture with proper application of water. This allows you to keep the plant as moist as needed without ever having to worry about holding too much water in the rootzone.

Fairways are another matter. Certainly we want to control water use on the bulk of the course — at least most times. However, not always with treated effluent (sewage). Again, moving the water quickly through the rootzone is usually best. And, in treated effluent areas there is rarely a shortage of water. In fact, many areas REQUIRE a certain use of water in order to get rid of it. This is true on The Big Island (Hawaii) where the only other alternative is evaporation or release into the ocean. The lava terrain is simply too porous to effectively use up water before it reaches the sea water table.

We have built a course on 100% pure blow sand and I can report that it is a dream to grow turf on such land. Sand does hold water, especially natural sands that are not processed. There is usually a big difference between sand in nature and sands that are manufactured for use on courses or in construction.

Steve — I would like to know more about your comment here...it seems you have made similar comments before and it would be good to engage you a bit on why you have this general feeling about organics, water retention and healthy turf.

[Brian Phillips]

Micro-organisms can be good...and yet they can also be troublesome. It is difficult to get fungus and disease to grow in pure sand mediums. In older greens they flourish — and they also flourish in newer greens that have been mismanaged or were built with (drum roll........) too many organics.

This is a very good statement.  I always try to build our greens with pure sand and add amendments as needed.  

It is always a big discussion especially when the owner brings in the local 'expert', usually a farmer who thinks his agronomic background can be used in Turfgrass Science as well.

It might be a little more difficult to get the grass to 'kick' in at the start and will require more 'follow up' from the Super. but surely this is better than trying to fight a lost cause of a rootzone that is 'blocked'.

We had a small nine hole course that we built upon a layer of crushed rock and then capped this with sand.  The sand was from a local quarry and we sent it off for testing.  We asked ETL to test the sand at various depths and explained the budgets.  

The owner was very happy when he saw that the results showed that a 20 cm cap with no amendments was just as good as a cap at 30cm with amendments.  We seeded fescue and now the course is draining like a dream.  We had to explain to the client that retention of water was just as important as percolation and luckily ETL explained this in their report. The course could not afford irrigation so it was also important that the sand had good retention capabilities as well as drain well.  If the club could have installed fairway irrigation then we would have increased the capping to 30cm or deeper to ensure even better drainage as recommended in the the report. It always depends on your budgets and ensuring that your Agronomist explains the pluses and minuses in his or her report.

Kingsbarns is another example of how important testing is.  If I remember correctly they tested the links sand and it was decided that they needed to build the greens with a 60 cm depth.

There is no one basic answer and all of us that are working in this business are usually very glad that our agronomic friends such as Dave Wilbur and George Shiels (who we use) are invloved in our projects.

[Grant Saunders]

I have personally been involved with establishing fescue on greens in native sand with no initial fertilisers or amendments. We had an excellent strike rate and germination within 7-8 days.
Organics were added at a later stage if deemed necessary and this was done very carefully with only small amounts used and the results monitored carefully.
I saw no visible difference in the early stages of growth compared to turf established with a very comprehensive pre-plant fertiliser plan. In my opinion I feel that most nutrients added when seeding are simply leeched out due to the high frequency of irrigation during establishment. New grass has minimal root depth so once the nutrients pass beyond this range, they become unavailable to the plant. Certainly a well devised fertiliser program is required once the plant gains some maturity or if a serious nutrient deficiency is present.

Interestingly, many courses in parts of Australia or going away from organic amendments during construction for the reasons Forrest lists. Why intrduce organic matter and then spend years intent on organic matter control. These guys are building greens in temperatures of 35 degrees celcius plus and extremely low rainfall.