100% Sand Greens.... Question for builders, architects, supers, etc

[Yannick Pilon]

Hi everybody,

A club I am working with is considering building 100% sand greens, and I have different consultants offering diverging opinions regarding the finishing and grassing of such greens.

Sand being difficult to fully compact properly prior to seeding, I have one consultant saying the Club is better of finishing the greens to the best of the crew's ability, and then, only when the grass will start to root down to about two inches, roll the greens to ensure a uniform compaction of the entire surface.

An other consultant is offering to compact the greens with a vibrating plate, or even possibly with a tractor equipped with big rollers, prior to the last step of the finishing and the seeding to ensure that there will be minimum settlement in the sand after the seeding (particularly in the areas where the sand meets the native soils around the green).

The first consultant is against the second one's idea, stating that the sand will never compact in a satisfactory manner prior to seeding, and that the proposed method will need to be done extremely carefully by an experienced operator to hopefully end up with a degree of "compaction" that will bring the expected results for our clients.

Any thoughts or experience on this kind situation? Or with the finishing and seeding of sand greens for that matter?  This is a very low budget golf course project, and we are looking at ways to save costs, wherever possible.  I have to keep this in mind at all time....  Not easy!

Thanks in advance for any input you guys might have.

YP

[Don_Mahaffey]

I think its a combination of the two methods. Wet 'em down and use a big roller if you can get the right type. If that baby starts to sink you'll have a mess. But in essence compact before seeding and then its normal to roll a lot during grow in. Its not really a straight sand thing as much as a type of sand deal. If your dealing with a narrowly graded round sand it'll take a lot of time for them to set up.
I will add this. Straight sand of the rounded type that doesn't set up and drains really fast is a nightmare to grow in. Lots of light irrigation and almost daily spoonfeeding. Install a fertigation system because the sprayer will track 'em up and the walk spreader will leave ruts.

[Ian Larson]

Stay away from round sand at all costs. Only use an angular sand. Angular is easy to compact and remain compacted. It should also be compacted as much as it possibly can be prior to seeding.

Think of it like burping a cup of flour. There's slot of air that is in the profile prior to compacting. The mission is to avoid random sinking and shifting after it's been seeded.

It's done by 2 methods. Watering the crap out it. Water forces the air down and up out of the profile. Then I've always used a wheeled tractor or the tracks on a mini excavator. Whichever one is used, going back and forth in straight lines. Don't make sudden turns with the wheels or tracks, just very slight angling at the edge of the green and work your way across. Water again, heavily and repeat. Do it until it actually feels firm to the foot.

Dons right it's both methods, a ton of rolling will be done after it's grown in. But waiting until after it's growing to finally get compaction could go very wrong. Compacting as much as you can ensures the integrity of the shaping is established before it's grown in. Doing it after offers more of a chance of that changing.

[Robin Doodson]

Instead of paying a bunch of consultants to guess how the sand is going to perform you should pay a couple of hundred bucks and send a sample of the sand off to be tested and they will tell you exactly how it will perform. In australia there are a number of labs which will do this, most notably the Golf Course Superintendents Association. The other thing that i would say is that it would have to be a pretty special site to get away with push up greens. you might be saving money now but will spend it down the track when you can't get the greens to perform.

robin

[Adrian_Stiff]

I dont know your budget but you said low. Id question the choice of 100% sand, its expensive to maintain, its going to need more water and more food. What is wrong with an 80-20 mix of Sand-Peat or even a 85-15 Sand -Soil (providing the clay content is low of course).
Your advisors shoud be giving you the best steer based on your $$$ and whats good for growing grass. If you are incorporating sand into a soil or peat mix you want rounded or sub rounded, preferabby silica with a ph of sub 7 but lab advice is critical, some soils look ok but are not.

[Yannick Pilon]

Adrian and Robin

Nothing's wrong with 80-20 mix; this is what I recommended they use.  But our budget is 2.2 million for everything on the golf course and buying mix was out of the question, even though I explained them many times the likely repercussions of this....  What we ended up with is a local sand that's very close to USGA specs in terms of particle sizes, but very low in organic material.  The natives soils are mostly sand that's a bit on the low end of the particle size analysis.  We were supposed to used that sand in the greens at first until a big lab told them that the sand was too fine and that it would compact too much.  Now we're on the other end of the spectrum!

Building sand greens is not the norm around here, so people have different opinions on how it should be done.  I'm just looking for a general consensus, if there is even one out there....

YP

[Ian Larson]

YP,

If you have a local affordable sand that is sized and shaped correctly you've hit a home run. Straight sand will do just fine. Especially when the turf takes root and develops some thatch, creating it's own organic for nutrient and some water retention. The most important thing is drainage and you will have that. One thing I would not reccomend is later on topdressing with anything that has organic in it. Just topdress with the same stuff it was built with. Topdressing with organic will tie everything up in the very top of the profile and nothing in the middle or bottom. Instead of trying to possibly add organic later replace that with a program that includes seaweed and humid acid for spraying. That will give you the benefit of organic without piling it all on the top and creating a layer.

[Todd Bell]

100% sand greens are not more expensive to maintain.  And does not need more water or food. 

[Ian Larson]

100% sand greens are not more expensive to maintain.  And does not need more water or food.  

I'm not COMPLETELY disagreeing but does that mean you don't consider CEC to be of any importance? Soil and straight sand are on opposite ends of the spectrum as far as CEC. Soil, especially with some clay, has a million exchange sites. Thus needing water and nutrients at a lesser frequency. Straight sand has very litlle, if any at all, exchange sites for water and nutrients. It all comes down to how many exchange sites are available in the soil. And the more exchange sites the less the frequency. The less frequency the less inputs with water and nutrients.

Over time as the turf produces it's own organic incorporated into it's profile the CEC WILL become higher. But until then, and while the CEC is low...straight sand will require more frequency of inputs. There also may be a SLIGHT difference in CEC from a rounded sand to an angular sand. But nothing significant, if at all.

The super will have to find a nice balance of growing the organic versus removing it. The more organic the higher the CEC and smaller frequency of inputs. But it can't be neglected and turned into an impenetrable mat of thatch. It will all come down to the fert program versus aerification and their respective frequencies.

[Ian Larson]

YP,

I want to point out and reiterate. It's not necessarily how heavy the piece of equipment is that you use to compact it. The most powerful tool their is to compact it is simply water. Push all the air out with water. A plate tamper would work but would take long. The tractor with heavy rollers would work too but you can't just drive the tractor around in circles, especially with a heavy ass roller behind it. The edges of the tires and roller with just push, displace or move sand off to the side. A point needs to be made to only apply a down pressure, not pushing it to the side by turning. So a back and forth motion by tractor or excavator only applies down pressure without displacing sand and changing grades. One thing I always do is put out a full circle sprinkler with a hose into the quick coupler and just let it run for a day or two. Moving it around the green but making sure all the water stays on only the green and not outside. Using greens heads usually ends up in soaking outside the green.

[archie_struthers]

 


Having kept close tabs on many grow ins and construction jobs over the last twenty years , it seems evident to me that the uise of straight sand is inferior to using a mix,  sand combo.......lots of different ideas whether it should be 90-10 ...85-15 or 80-20 ...but it appears the soil will require less maintenance and water ...not a bad thing .......ever

[Randy Thompson]

Ian is right, watering will have far better result then any rolling. Take a four inch or six inch piece of pvc, put sand in it in layers and punch it and compact it, do that for twelve inches. Put a fine screen on the bottom and water it heavily and watch how much more it compacts with the water or a better word than compact would be SETTLE. You need to have water flowinng freely through your herringbone drains, when that happens continue to water some more, repeat this procedure the next day and maybe a third day. Following the seeding in two directions, Use the tires of the sand pro in a back and forth direction covering the entire suface with the knobs of the tires. This make a little indented three quater inch square. This brings the seed in contact with the soil and you should have a higher percentage of germination because of the micro enviroment it produces. It will also help the seed from moving in natural rains..up to a point. After four weeks, roll with what ever you can and that should be it for rolling, couple of good topdressing with the same sand the greens were built with during week four to eight and you will have the surface you seek. After the first year you will have a continous fight against compaction, why do anything in favor of that? I know that some will argue that rolling produces temporary compaction but...hard to convience me it has 0 effect in relation to any long term compaction. What were the perc rates on the native sand, labs like to have six to ten inches but if the native sand tested near four inches in an hour and budget was tight I would have stayed with the native sand and aerifed once or twice more per year unless your in an area with extremly high rates of annual rainfall. We have done this with at least three courses and in the last fifteen years and zero problems. I beleive I have read on this site where Tom D and crew has done the same. USGA greens are nice but there not for everybody, kind of like using baskets on your fairway mowers, yeah that would be great but its not practical for all clubs. There are lots of examples of great maintained year round greens with fine sand construction and also native soils greens, far from USGA specifications. I assume your planting bent because if your on bermuda... even less reason to use the perfect sand. Good luck!

[Jim Thompson]

From the old school method:

Wet some mix and make a bunch of little sausage links size roll ups:

If you can't get them to hold together you need angle and/or organic.

Once you can get them to hold together, having kept track off your ratios of additives, put said links in an oven at about 200 degrees.  The recipe that yields links that are hard but you can "pop them" or "burst them" with the pressure of your thumb against your palm is the right mix.  If it doesn't completely shatter then its too heavy.

Cheers!

JT