Altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi.

One of many many sideshows I have been distracted by along the way in this MAD/BAD obsession has been Hydrophobic Soils, you see they are a common factor in a lot but not all of what I have been looking at.

Despite seeing that from loads of different sites it never gets boring... just fascinating especially when you know it is just air dried rootzone from a Golf Green, invariably one that is having issues, strange that....

The first time I saw it though... Wow!.. I think I physically jumped as I just could not believe what i was seeing...... At the start of this obsession was looking to see if Dispersion and Slaking were players as the first real Greens I poked and prodded to any degree had a high clay/silt content and I thought this was the key player...

So I then spent months.... and months....... and months... Drying soil, and then checking virgin sands and rootzones.. they ain't got no coatings, they gain them

Comparing soils from different regimes like the 'Golf Green Gladiators' below had a serious side to it, 2 Links, 2 Parks, one PAYP, one a Brewer, one an Open venue, one the 'Best Greens In Britain' allegedly....... WELL all I will say is they certainly were the BEST out of this lot for Hydrophobia ...  

I sat and timed water droplets onto soil for hours and hours

I even tried different things like flushing with pH 4 Acids, Chlorine, Brake Cleaner and just H2O to compare against a Control, see if I could affect the coatings.... One got WORSE!!!!, the one that reduced coating the best...... Water... just Water! 

Now people will try and tell you its all about the fungal mycelium... TOSH.. well obviously not unless you take it from right on a Fairy Ring anyway.. How do I know this.. cos Laverstoke Park tell me there is virtually NO Fungal activity from samples that are equally as odd...

And lets face it it is not difficult, get a microscope and have a peep if there is mycelium it will be visible.

So if it's not fungi what is it then.. .. Guess what?.. I have a mad theory... Wahay!

You have to start looking at these areas, the location, the levels, the management..

And wonder why grass would want to grow so well in pure sand yet is stunted and sickly when in a nice organic rootzone

You look at areas of Dry Patch and wonder why they are not always on the high points 

You start to see zones or lines in some areas

Yes Irrigation is a massive influence and it's effectiveness is paramount BUT the soil should still crave water in these areas... it's like they have had a big row and they are just not talking to each other

The pic below was a real eye and mind opener for me, surveying Greens for a rebuild project and I was tracking an existing Drain, when I looked back I realised that the 'Dry Patch' came off the Green out onto the Approach, crossing management regime lines, was right next to this Sprinkler in its 'efficient' range... but it stopped dead at the drain......... in a straight line.... any management that could influence carried on past or didn't reach it, the mow lines, any aeration, chemical 'treatments'... everything ... the only thing that was 'limiting' its range was a drain........... made me think a little.........   

IF you want to read all the really meaty research on Hydrophobic Soils you need to get down and personal with hours... and hours....... and hours of stuff on Bush & Forest Fires. This is where the science dollars seem to have been spent although there are a couple of UK Universities meant to be doing some in depth research on it here in terms of run off etc at the moment.

From Sport there is a few Chem Co produced research papers about but that is potentially as risky as believing everything you read in a newspaper, Conspiracy Theory Alert..... you WILL see what they want you to see and the money shot will be ... Product X has done this sorry I digress...... IF you want to understand the 'mechanics' of Hydrophobia then read up on Bush Fires, California or Oz based research is the best I found. In Sport most still talks about Mycelium being the main cause.... great if you looking at Fairy Rings... I ain't.. I am told there is none there.

I would love to have had an opportunity to look at a say Heath fire area to get a comparison with what I am seeing in Sport but this Summer this part of the World has been reasonably moist at times, England is in fact this year quite a Green and Pleasant Land... 

Fate however is a strange strange thing.. as a few may know back in July South East Water were renewing some pipework and had a compound next to my garden and some inbred muppet decided it would be a laugh to set light to the Portaloo next to my fence.... Another long story and still ongoing with it being no ones fault at all the site/toilet was not secured and subsequently the fire and my fence/pool/trees/solar panel being toasted is my problem....... Harrumpff!

An eventful night and an expensive one so far BUT never one to miss out on a opportunity the next day whilst clearing the remnants of the fence I thought 'I wonder.....?'

From the heat of above I got.....

My own personal potential Bush Fire affect, well I at least thought it would be rude not to see if some of the things that develop consequentially after a Bush Fire would develop here even if to a lesser extent.

The more cynical amongst you may question if I had a box of matches in my possession that night.... Tsk .. shame on you.. Do you know how bloody stressful that is to sort out... and more important how much it costs if NO ONE is going to pay for fence replacement..

Anyway... Like I said having read far too much stuff for my own good on the effect of Fire on soil I wanted to have a good poke about and see what was happening. One thing was very very obvious the next day, the flies... loads and loads of them, not quite plague like but enough to put you off putting up a fence.... all feeding on the dead worms, snails, bugs all barbecued the night before.. a banquet of toasted biology on the surface that wasn't wasted, I wonder what it was like just beneath the surface? Fire and Heat are a cleanser, a steriliser, I would doubt that in the most affected areas much survived in the top surface if at all... EXPERT HEAD SHAKING & TUTTING DISCLAIMER ALERT.. Now this is where reality kicks in and I  know that the limitation of the fire to the one area will also limit the blanket affect to the soil and that very close by stuff will be able to survive and take advantage of any opportunities that arise..... I know this, I just want to explore.....

So... how do you best look at an area and see how it has changed... you take a sample first and compare... WELL I didn't bloody know this was going to happen did I so that's that out the window.. and the area is far too different to the unaffected lawn areas to compare truly so the next thought was monitor changes.... AND if you have done loads and loads of reading, are a little sanity challenged and think you may know what is happening? then you try and influence it's recovery.

So from this above we got to this after around 6 weeks

I haven't pushed the area, it just got a little bit of water from a hose, a bit more from a watering can when I was trying to get the seed away in the early stages, like I said a moist one this Summer on its own.

Now the new seed is doing its thing, I did add to and till the soil in the outer area so that is irrelevant to this, I physically changed that too much, the front retained grass bit though, that is just it recovering from the scorch.

How do then monitor an area like this, well the good ol staple of Observation for one and from my point of view I wanted to see IF the fire heat would cause gases to condense further down as is sort of the general thought in research so I looked at what would these cooling gases create and that is an impermeable line of residues, leading invariably to the Tin Roof Effect, with associated hydrophobic layers. 

So I am now monitoring infiltration rates of the area, 3 readings down and I will continue every 3-4 weeks or so until Christmas for now.

The more astute amongst you may notice that I have split the area in 2 and that I have two fixed areas that are the same distance from the main 'scorch' line. This is so I ensure as consistent readings as possible enabling me to test the identical same spot to the same depth each time and take out any localised variation. 

One side is Control, having nothing but EQUAL amounts of water put on as the other side, the other side has had 3 treatments with approx 2 weeks lapsed between treat and first record.

Now this is great isn't it?.......... DATA.. numbers.... pretty pictures...... in fact I am almost too excited for me own good... Hell it looks like I may even know what I am doing (I don't!)

Now none of this counts for much as ever and as is the way until there is loads and loads of it.... so I am just going to keep recording infiltration rates from the same places until there is a mountain of curves for you all to 'oooh and aaah' over..

Yet again this information will mean nothing in the overall scale of things BUT it will show and track any variation and changes that go on in the soil from these 2 plots less than a metre apart.

Right time to find out where the hell my pH and EC standard s have got too... tsk you just can not trust a courier nowadays..