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.

Quote from: paul cowley on January 20, 2008, 09:52:03 AM

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......

 

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...

".....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!

 

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....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".

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.

....about 17% more.

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

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.

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

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.

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.