Every Job and Every Day Are Different

The hydroseeding machine and the crew may be the same as last month or last year, but every job is different. Each project has its own variables—tricky slopes, tight timelines, rain that just won’t quit, and more. Finding the right combination of seeds, mulch, and other ingredients so that soil stays intact and vegetation flourishes keeps the work interesting and challenging.

Huntsville International Airport
In 2016, the Huntsville (Alabama) International Airport-Carl T. Jones Field received $9.6 million from the Federal Aviation Administration for the second phase of a five-phase project to construct a new parallel taxiway. This phase of the project involves site preparation and drainage improvements for the 0.6-mile-long segment of Taxiway C that connects the cargo aircraft parking area to the north end of a major runway. The new taxiway will enhance safety by reducing midfield runway crossings by cargo aircraft.

Work on the project began in 2017. The hydroseeding work, which started in early summer 2017, is being done by Alta Turf of Elkmont, AL.

The project includes hydroseeding about 30 acres and laying 35,000 to 40,000 yards of sod. The work area is on both sides of the airport’s new 2,500-foot taxiway, extending 25 feet from the edges and along an access road. The crew also restored one ditch, which was about 300 feet long.

“We laid sod across the bottom, which is 20 feet wide. Then we hydroseeded the sides, which are a 3-to-1 slope and 20 feet high,” says Dennis Clark, Alta Turf’s owner.

Part of the project has been completed—the land on the west side of the taxiway plus the ditch. Clark says this first half of the project went well. “The weather was great. The grass is up and it looks good. The general super­intendent overseeing the project, Steve Martin, was calling me ­‘Doctor Grass.’”

Work on the first half of the project started at the end of September 2017. Good weather saved the crew from any delays.

“We had only eight-tenths of an inch of rain in November, but in December and January, winter set in,” says Clark. Work stopped, “because you can’t lay asphalt in cold, wet weather.”

Clark attributes that success on the first half of the project to years of knowledge gained through experience and planning. Before he started planning for the job, he took lots of soil samples to be sure the hydroseeding mix would be ideal for each location.

The soil is red clay. Clark says that the site “probably was a cotton field at one time. The airport owns surrounding land for future expansion and leases some of it for cotton growing now.”

The project’s general contractor is Weaver Environmental Services Co. Inc. (WESCO) of Madison County, AL. When Alta Turf’s hydroseeding work was done, the contractor’s crew placed double-sided L4 straw mats from L&M Supply of Willacoochee, GA, over the ground.

Clark has used a FINN T120 HydroSeeder for several years. In early summer 2017, he took delivery of a T330. It has been ideal for very large jobs, making it cost-effective to accept those projects.

The T330 is mounted on a six-wheel-drive US Army surplus truck that Clark obtained in Minnesota. A company there stretched the HydroSeeder to the truck, and FINN painted everything white.

The T330 has a 3,000-gallon working capacity tank. A two-valve straight line discharge piping system improves the flow of the slurry. That design results in higher output, greater pressure, and a farther slurry discharge distance.

“It’s got a stainless steel tank and a John Deere engine with plenty of power. It does a real good job for us,” says Clark.

The T330 uses twin hydraulically controlled paddle agitation. This type of agitation was one reason Clark chose a FINN Hydroseeder.

“I would never own a jet agitator, and you can quote me on that,” he says emphatically. “A jet agitator can get clogged with wood fiber. I’ve never had a problem with wood fiber stopping a FINN.”

One challenge on the project, he says, has been the pH level of the soil. “It ranges from 5.5 to 8, with normal at 6.5. We had to treat each area separately. We use ammonia sulfate to bring the pH down and lime to bring the pH up. We can do this with the HydroSeeder,” he explains.

Seed for the project is Water Saver fescue from Pennington Seed of Madison, GA. Also in the hydroseeding mix were water, Flexterra from Profile Products, and 8-24-24 fertilizer. Humic acid was applied to help the seed germinate and grow.

Flexterra was applied at the rate of 3,500 pounds per acre. “It holds the moisture in well,” says Clark.

“We’re right in the middle of a transition zone, 100 miles from Nashville and 100 miles from Birmingham. Nashville’s native grass is fescue. Birmingham’s is Bermuda,” says Clark.

Clark’s hydroseeding business is a natural extension of his sod farm business, Alta Turf, which is named after his grandmother Alta Ruf. “We grow warm weather grasses—zoysia, Bermuda, and fescue,” he says.

Alta Turf has been growing and selling different types of sod since 1999, on farmland that has been in Clark’s family since 1928. He grew the business by purchasing another 53 acres of land in 2014. The company also owns two C.T. Garvin Feed & Seed stores, in Huntsville and Elkmont, AL. Both of these stores sell sod grown on the farm.

He notes that the Epic’s cleanout tank is better than a flushing tank. “The benefit to the owner is production time saved. The benefit to the crew is that it saves time at the end of the workday. They get home sooner.”

One problem with working in Colorado as fall turns to winter “was making sure the machine was completely drained out, as freezing night conditions can wreak havoc if not done properly. Standard operating procedure per the season,” he says.

Duin added hydroseeding to his erosion control business in the fall of 2016. At the time, he was using a 30-year-old machine. “With that machine, we found out how hard hydroseeding can be. With the Epic, we found out how easy and good it can be.”

On the Solterra project, the crew first did a dry application of fertilizer with the seed mix. The seeds were a Foothills (Native Seed) Mix, which includes Indian rice grass, bluestem, blue gamma, Indian grass, Rocky Mountain fescue, western wheat grass, and side-oats grama. This seed mix came from Buffalo Brand Seed (Sharp Bros. Seed) of Greeley, CO. The locally owned company specializes in alfalfas, native grasses, forages, and turfgrasses and serves Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana.

The hydromulch, with water and a little of the seed mixture, was then applied separately. The product used was EcoMatrix Engineered Fiber Matrix from Profile Products of Buffalo Grove, IL. EcoMatrix consists of biodegradable, 100% recycled wood fibers and phyto-sanitized components with no nettings, threads, or staples to endanger wildlife.

Duin prefers to apply the seed before the hydromulch is sprayed separately. “That’s so you don’t risk encapsulation of the seed by the hydromulch,” he explains.

The soil at the site is a sandy clay mix. No amendments were added to it, and straw was not needed as a final cover.

The site is a mixture of flat land and sloped. However, the degree of slope (3 to 1) at the site is “why we converted the client to using the hydromulch instead of a blanket,” explains Duin.

Duin says that his view of hydromulch has changed. “I’ve been doing erosion control work for 15 years. I was a big proponent of using erosion control blankets, but I’ve seen hydromulch get a lot better over the years. And with better hydromulching materials, the installation we’re giving our customer is a lot better.”

He adds, “We’ve learned to slow down and make sure all shadowing is covered. We want to go over the area from both sides to get the best covering to give the appearance of a blanket.”

Water was available onsite at the Solterra project. “We typically require that,” says Duin.

Duin says that in the relatively short time since he added hydroseeding to his erosion control business, he has learned “how many different application processes there are in hydroseeding and how it can save time. For example, when we do drill seeding, we crimp the seed. Now we can just spray over the top of it and add straw to hold it down.”

In the future, he wants to experiment with applying dust control materials with the Epic hydroseeding machine. That extra capability should be useful on mine reclamation jobs.

Fulton County, NY
Johnstown, NY, is almost 200 miles north of New York City and 108 miles east of Syracuse. The city is within Fulton County, which has 34 lakes within its boundaries and is just east of New York State’s famous Finger Lakes Region.

The Fulton County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) in Johnstown has a new hydroseeding machine, provided through state funding.

“New York State has had this program for at least 10 years,” says John Persch, Fulton County SWCD’s district manager. “It’s through a competitive grant process. The Department of Environmental Conservation gets funding from the Environmental Protection Fund, and it’s a WQ1 [water-quality] program.”

Persch explains that the Fulton County SWCD has, in the last eight years, joined forces with two regional watershed organizations, the Upper Hudson River Coalition and the Mohawk River Basin Coalition, for cooperative efforts to make funds go further. Six different counties were involved in the same round of funding. Three of them applied for grants to purchase their own hydroseeding machines.

“We had to get at least three bids,” says Persch.

Fulton County SWCD received its new hydroseeding machine in the spring of 2016. It is a Bowie Hydro-Mulcher Victor 800, made by Bowie Manufacturing in Bowie, TX.

The machine operates with a Yanmar 48-horsepower diesel engine. Two pump options are available—a 3-inch Bowie gear pump and a 4- by 2-inch centrifugal pump. An optional clear water flush system saves work time for the operator.

“The Bowie came very well recommended,” says Persch. “A couple of private contractors in our county had Bowie machines and liked them, especially because they are low maintenance.”

He adds that the SWCD is “not allowed to compete with private industry. We can’t go and underbid landscapers, for example. So we use our machine basically for municipal or road district work.”

One such municipal project was in the nearby town of Ephrata, which is part of Fulton County. The city of Ephrata owns a gravel pit or rock quarry. Rock is extracted for road work and other projects on city land, not for sale to private customers.

The project involved reclaiming and restoring the land at part of the site where mining was finished. The last part of the project was getting grass to grow on the site, a Critical Seedings area. To do this, Persch and his crew relied on ProGanics from Profile Products, which Persch terms “liquid topsoil.”

ProGanics Biotic Soil Media has been designed as an alternative to topsoil. It accelerates the development of depleted soils or substrates, those that have low organic matter, low nutrient levels, and limited biological activity.

Persch says the Fulton County SWCD had a grant to ­purchase the ProGanics. “We did four acres of reclamation, and it turned out beautifully. Within a week or a week and a half, the site looked almost like you could go in and mow it.”

He describes the process: “You have to go over the site twice. First you put down ProGanics and the seed. Then you go in and put down the hydromulch with tackifier.”

Persch admits that he was surprised at how quickly the seed germinated. “This was our first job using ProGanics.”

The Fulton County SWCD also did a joint project with nearby Montgomery County’s SWCD. “On shale soil, we used ProGanics in October, which boosted the germination rate,” says Persch.

The gravel pit reclamation project in Ephrata is an example of shared services or all-in-kind services work. That means that multiple municipalities or agencies are involved, with the goal of helping each other out. By trading time and services among the various entities, “the taxpayers’ money goes further,” says Persch.

The Ephrata project was done in June 2017. It took only three days to do the 4-acre site.

“We had two men operating our hydroseeding machine, one man driving the truck, one man from Ephrata loading and unloading materials, and two men with the local [Ephrata] volunteer fire department hauling water [for the hydroseeding machine],” says Persch.

The result of this cooperation was “no downtime. It was all constant action. That’s why it went so quickly. We never had to wait for water to refill the hydroseeding machine.”

For other hydroseeding projects where the SWCD isn’t fortunate enough to have the services of dedicated water suppliers, “we scout ahead before the work starts. We have portable pumps to use,” he explains.

He says that the biggest challenge on the Ephrata project was “dealing with the wind. The gravel pit is in an open area. There are summer winds here, and if it’s blowing in the morning, it will be blowing all day.”

The slopes on the site were “probably 15 to 20% grade, some up to 25%,” says Persch.

To pull the Bowie 800 Hydro-Mulcher to work sites, the Fulton County SWCD bought a US Army surplus truck from nearby Ft. Drum, the home of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division. Persch says it has been a good purchase.

“It’s a diesel, four-wheel drive, two-and-a-half-ton flatbed. It had 9,000 miles on it and we paid $3,000. We can put all the hydromulch on it, and it can handle the slopes.”

Most of Fulton County’s SWCD hydroseeding work is on small sections of road or land. In the last year, the district has hydroseeded a total of 4 miles of road ditch and 8 acres of land.

Persch says that the Bowie machine has more than lived up to his expectations. He says that Bowie’s northeast sales manager, Ed Dugan, “has been very helpful to us. He was here for the whole day for demonstrations and made sure everyone knew how to operate it. “

Public reaction to Fulton County SWCD’s hydroseeding machine has been “very positive,” says Persch. Recalling a summer project in the village of Northfield, he says that the crew was working on a ditch beside a steep hill, on Main Street, going out of town.

“Lots of people saw us—residents and vacationers. Some even waved. Good relationships with the nearby towns help. They bring flagmen to help us out with the traffic,” he adds.