# Extreme clayey soil



## gardencityboy (Mar 8, 2018)

I have recently been a first time owner of a house which has about 6000 sq ft of Bermuda lawn. This house was built about 3 years back and the Bermuda lawn was set by the builder using sod. 
The problem I have is the soil is extremely clayey. Even now after 3 years I can pull the grass out and it come to my hand easily. Lawn would be green during the growing season but it is not dense.

This year I did a core lawn aeration and even after a month the holes are intact, not sure if they will ever fill.
I do plan to do a sand leveling in the summer when the grass growth is more and can emerge out of the sand.

Yesterday I applied pre-emergent and irrigated the lawn and it seems all the water would not go it to the soil. I am not sure if pre-emergent would be able to get into the soil and be able to get the barrier needed to stop the weeds.
I scalped my lawn a week ago more weeds are cropping up now.

Any suggestion are welcome on how to make the pre-emergent more effectively absorbed by the soil.


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## HoosierLawnGnome (Sep 28, 2017)

There isn't enough information here to solve your weed problem.

For one, how do you know you have a clay-based soil? Have you tested it's structure?

For two, what else is going on in the soil that may prevent it from supporting a thriving Bermuda lawn? Have you tested it?

And, what are your cultivation, watering, and other habits?

All these can play into why you have weed pressure.

A hydrophobic soil can be caused by excess calcium that binds everything up - like dirt on a limestone quarry 

It CAN be. That doesn't mean it IS. Which is why you always need to test before making decisions to remedy something related to soil, and put it into the context of your overall goals and practices.


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## gardencityboy (Mar 8, 2018)

HoosierLawnGnome said:


> There isn't enough information here to solve your weed problem.
> 
> For one, how do you know you have a clay-based soil? Have you tested it's structure?
> 
> ...


I have not done any formal testing on the soil but based on my digging I can make out the soil is very clayey. (there was lot of water logging at one of the corners in my yard and I thought it was a underground leak, after digging found out that it was all the water being accumulating in a corner after irrigation)

Regarding watering habits I started with infrequent long watering but that would end up with all my water in the drain(in the front yard) and very marshy back yard, so I have not moved to frequent small interval watering. 3 time a week with 10 min on, any thing above this will cause the water to flow out.

The question here is if I have a hydrophobic soil will pre-emergent be effective? Am I wasting time and money throwing pre-emergent into soil which it cannot be absorbed?


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## TC2 (Sep 15, 2017)

So long as the pre-em can reach the soil to bind to it, it should work. It doesn't penetrate very far into the ground because it binds to the surface layers. Your biggest issue would be washing it off before it reaches the soil.


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## Tellycoleman (May 10, 2017)

A few questions

1) How many trees do you have in your yard? ( can you show pictures) Does your bermuda get enouph sun?
2) You are a little late on the pre- emergent since you live in texas. Better late than never your pre-emergent will still be effective against alot of summer weeds. However you might have to fight a few weeds this year. What did you use?
3) You need to determine how much water you are putting down with your sprinkler system. Have you ever done a tuna can test to see how much water your sprinklers put out? ( this probably should have been number 1)

If you already aerated this year then you did so a little early for bermuda. It is usually encouraged to aerate when the grass is actively growing and fully green. It shouldnt hurt anything but it will be a while before the bermuda fills in the holes.

I think your priority needs to be figure out your water output, And Fix drainage issues. A week bermuda lawn can be caused by poor drainage. If your yard turns into a marsh after watering this can stress and thin your lawn.
Find out if you are you putting out an inch of water in 15 min or does it take an hour?
Solutions for your soggy lawn might be digging a french drain to channel water away or buying high effeciency sprinkler heads that take 1 hour or more to put down 1 inch of water. Your lawn will be healthier in the hot Texas sun if you encourage deep roots. Short frequent watering make your grass less heat tolerant.

You also need a soil test to see what nutrients your soil needs

Thanks for asking for help!!! Provide us as much info as possible on the above questions and ask as many questions as possible so we can help


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## gardencityboy (Mar 8, 2018)

Tellycoleman said:


> A few questions
> 
> 1) How many trees do you have in your yard? ( can you show pictures) Does your bermuda get enouph sun?
> 2) You are a little late on the pre- emergent since you live in texas. Better late than never your pre-emergent will still be effective against alot of summer weeds. However you might have to fight a few weeds this year. What did you use?
> ...


Thanks a lot for the pointers.

Answers to your questions
1) I don't have any trees in my back yard and 2 small trees in the front yard which are about 8 ft tall
2) Well I would have done the pre-emergent earlier only if I know this forum existed. I recently came across this great forum and learnt a lot about lawn care, still learning and will keep learning. Never owned a house or a lawn before. 
I use Prodiamine 65 WDG for my pre-emergent.

I have attached some pictures from my back yard which I took before the lawn went dormant 






I will working on getting the soil test done soon. Also will move the watering back to infrequent watering without causing overflow and measure the output of water from sprinklers.

One question I have in mind is, since my lawn is a little uneven, I plan to add sand leveling in summer when the grass is growing faster, will adding sand help with the soil holding more water for the lawn?


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

This is just my $0.02 of input, and I know that it's not every homeowner's style, but IMO, the grass seems to be too tall. I'm just going to give advice on what I think might help alleviate some of the issues that you're facing. Since Bermuda grows by stolons and rhizomes, it's going to need areas in the lawn to tack down to in order to "tighten up" the soil profile. If you have the leaf tissues competing with each other to get sunlight, and grow toward the sun, I'm thinking that the grass might be expending more energy growing upwards than laterally.

If you were to lower your HOC, I would think that you would see the roots penetrate deeper and tighten up the soil profile. What's your HOC at?

If you were to add the sand at the HOC that I see the pictures at, how can you truly tell that you're getting a level lawn, when it's going to take 1"+ of sand to even come close to hitting the "level" of the lawn.


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## gardencityboy (Mar 8, 2018)

Colonel K0rn said:


> This is just my $0.02 of input, and I know that it's not every homeowner's style, but IMO, the grass seems to be too tall. I'm just going to give advice on what I think might help alleviate some of the issues that you're facing. Since Bermuda grows by stolons and rhizomes, it's going to need areas in the lawn to tack down to in order to "tighten up" the soil profile. If you have the leaf tissues competing with each other to get sunlight, and grow toward the sun, I'm thinking that the grass might be expending more energy growing upwards than laterally.
> 
> If you were to lower your HOC, I would think that you would see the roots penetrate deeper and tighten up the soil profile. What's your HOC at?
> 
> If you were to add the sand at the HOC that I see the pictures at, how can you truly tell that you're getting a level lawn, when it's going to take 1"+ of sand to even come close to hitting the "level" of the lawn.


Currently I have reduced my HOC to a lot lower level than what you seen in the picture. I am planning to maintain it between .75" to 1". I bought a McLane Green keepers reel mower from craigslist to maintain a low HOC.

Let me know if .75" to 1" would work


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

gardencityboy said:


> Colonel K0rn said:
> 
> 
> > This is just my $0.02 of input, and I know that it's not every homeowner's style, but IMO, the grass seems to be too tall. I'm just going to give advice on what I think might help alleviate some of the issues that you're facing. Since Bermuda grows by stolons and rhizomes, it's going to need areas in the lawn to tack down to in order to "tighten up" the soil profile. If you have the leaf tissues competing with each other to get sunlight, and grow toward the sun, I'm thinking that the grass might be expending more energy growing upwards than laterally.
> ...


Whatever you're comfortable with is what works best for you.  I'm certain with it being that low, you'll see a better improvement in conditions. Let us know what your soil tests indicate, and I would recommend a soil profile test as well. You can help identify what type of soil you have with the makeup (sandy, sandy loam, clay, etc) with that profile knowledge, and there's several people on here that are very knowledgeable to help you figure out what is going to be best in your situation with the results from that profile test.


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## gardencityboy (Mar 8, 2018)

Sounds like a plan. Thanks you all for the help!!


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## Mightyquinn (Jan 31, 2017)

Looks like you are on your way to getting the help you need with very sounds advice so far but I would like to add that it might be a good idea to aerate before you level with sand. filling those holes with sand will help in the long run with getting air, water and nutrients down closer to the roots. The sand probably won't help with the lawn retaining moisture and will probably have the opposite effect but over time it should help with the marshy feeling you get when it's wet. Just remember, this is a marathon and not a sprint so just be patient and don't try to do too much too soon. We are all here to help you attain the lawn you want.


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## Spammage (Apr 30, 2017)

Unless all of the op's soil was brought in from somewhere else, he has about a 99.9% chance of having calcareous clay. With Logan Labs we had to request a different soil test, has anyone checked Waypoint for this?


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## Tellycoleman (May 10, 2017)

gardencityboy said:


> Also will move the watering back to infrequent watering without causing overflow and measure the output of water from sprinklers.


Its better just to put out 3 or 4 empty tuna cans per zone. run the sprinklers for 15 min and measure how much water in each tuna can. For example if you average 1/2 inch of water in 15 min then multiply that by 4 and that is your inches per hour. which in this example would be 2 inches per hour. if your worried about run off run it for 10 mintes and do the math


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## Ware (Jan 28, 2017)

Tellycoleman said:


> Its better just to put out 3 or 4 empty tuna cans per zone. run the sprinklers for 15 min and measure how much water in each tuna can. For example if you average 1/2 inch of water in 15 min then multiply that by 4 and that is your inches per hour. which in this example would be 2 inches per hour. if your worried about run off run it for 10 mintes and do the math


+1

These are handy for that task if you don't like tuna.


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

Ware said:


> Tellycoleman said:
> 
> 
> > Its better just to put out 3 or 4 empty tuna cans per zone. run the sprinklers for 15 min and measure how much water in each tuna can. For example if you average 1/2 inch of water in 15 min then multiply that by 4 and that is your inches per hour. which in this example would be 2 inches per hour. if your worried about run off run it for 10 mintes and do the math
> ...


+1. They're helpful, especially if you get the tuna in the packages, and not the cans. Maybe that's why I wasn't getting accurate measurements.


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## T-Roy Jenkins (Apr 24, 2017)

Ware said:


> These are handy for that task if you don't like tuna.


I got a set of those last year. Pretty easy to use. I just didn't like the results and need to fine tune this summer.


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## gardencityboy (Mar 8, 2018)

Ware said:


> Tellycoleman said:
> 
> 
> > Its better just to put out 3 or 4 empty tuna cans per zone. run the sprinklers for 15 min and measure how much water in each tuna can. For example if you average 1/2 inch of water in 15 min then multiply that by 4 and that is your inches per hour. which in this example would be 2 inches per hour. if your worried about run off run it for 10 mintes and do the math
> ...


I guess I will go buy these as I am vegetarian


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## gardencityboy (Mar 8, 2018)

Time to revive this post.
Finally got my soil test done and reports sounds like bad news.
Need help from the soil experts on what can be done to improve the soil condition.
Looks like my soil has a very high ph and crazy levels of Calcium and magnesium

Also the reports says that I need to add more sulfur to bring down ph but looking at the report it says that the sulfur level are close to very high which does not make sense.

Any help is appreciated.


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## Bunnysarefat (May 4, 2017)

In regards to your sulfer, this is a good time to bring up this paper I recently found describing sulfer and turfgrass. It seems to suggest that the good quality turf can handle much higher levels of sulfer than is commonly believed. Maybe someone sees something different here in this study?
https://www.paceturf.org/member/Documents/0410.pdf


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## Spammage (Apr 30, 2017)

@gardencityboy This is what I expected to see. These results are similar across Texas from the Gulf Coast to DFW. The good news is that your bermuda grass really doesn't care. I have been using MESZ fertilizer mixed with Milo as needed to help with phosphorus levels and to help the pH as much as possible. MESZ is a combination of monoammonium phosphate, sulfur and zinc. I picked this up at the co-op in Bryan.


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## gardencityboy (Mar 8, 2018)

@Spammage Thanks, I was also expecting similar results but not as bad as what I got. Looks like lowering the pH in my case may not work as this is a highly calcareous soil.
The problem with my turf is that is very thin and the roots are shallow, may be because the ground is very clayey and hard when dry, I have a hydrophobic soil.
I guess instead of correcting the pH with sulfur, I could leave the pH as is and move to a general purpose 20-20-20 fertilizer which will help better root growth because the K and P and way lower than expected.


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