Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Erosion control

I need your input on controlling dam erosion, getting grass or ground cover growing this fall.

Anybody know how much Hydroseeding or Hydromulching costs? A guy mentioned that might be an avenue--expensive????

I need to get something growing on my new dam...outside & inside slopes. We've had some rain over the past couple of weeks and my mostly clay dam is "rutting" and silting pretty badly. Not much top soil to help a grass hold onto.
I read some archived posts here about broadcasting
a mix of rye & bermuda.
Anyone ever use the landscaper mesh material?

Thanks.
GlenB

I've had several ponds built over the past 15 months and have experienced the same erosion problems that you describe. I used a combination
of unhulled bermuda and fescue on the upper slopes of the dam, inside and out. The seed has
germinated and spread fairly well on mostly
hard clay sufaces. Bermuda seed is expensive,
but can be purchased in 50lb quantites at
chemical supply houses for about $100. The fescue is considerably cheaper. Rye might be a good start during the colder months. Commericial carpet starter grass is great for the state highway department, but it is prohibitively
expensive and was not a consideration.

My first shot was wheat. Rye is a lot more expensive and bermuda ain't going to germinate this time of year. The downside of wheat is that it really should be covered and rye is broadcast on top of the ground. Forget about the perennial rye stuff. I have been told by seed people that it is rare that you will get it to come back with any consistency. If there is anyway you can scratch the dam to hold the seeds, it will help. You also might contact some seed seller like Justin Seed and Feed to get their ideas about heavy clay problems. I seem to remember that vetch does pretty well on clay but don't know about this time of year.

I am having the same questions and thoughts. I recently discovered Turbo Turff (.com) and they have an amazing array of hydro mulch systems for every budget and job. I can't wait to get mine and get to work this spring.

This time last year our dam was finished. We wanted to plant native warm season grasses and wildflowers which are impossible to get to germinate this time of year. So I fertilized and planted winter wheat and strawed the heck out of it. It came up and before the spring rains came I put annual ryegrass and straw down in places where it washed a little. In May we lightly harrowed, seeded the NWSG and flowers, then rolled, and strawed it again. After they came up I fertilized it and set up a sprinkling system using a sump pump in a bucket with 1.5" hose to a 1.5" PVC fork 3way and Y's to run 6 hoses that 2-3 of these cheap little sprinklers with spikes that you stick in the ground on each hose. It all work great and the dam looks nice with flowers I don't have to CUT and it will only get better. I'm having my pond enlarged right now and will be doing the same thing except I’m using KY 31 instead of NWSG with the 100lb of wheat on this side of the bank and hillside that goes 150' all the way to my house, but because of the distance and slope I’ve got silt fences and straw rolls I’m also going to us with straw. This work starts tomorrow!

Glen,

Here is what worked for me on my new dam that was just about to literally erode away...I unrolled a few round bales of hay on the exposed portions of the dam. Not only did it stop the erosion cold for the winter, but the next spring the bahia grass seeded and provided permanent control...no more erosion. If you can find last years hay, it is very inexpensive, but it does help to have a tractor to move the large round bales around where you need them.

I originally tried broadcsting seed and covering with straw but with the slope I had and the amount of rain/wind we kept getting, it kept blowing away and washing out. I eventually used a combination of straw mats and straw covered with landscape fabric and it worked extremely well for my situation.

If I had it to do over again, I would not have used the straw mats simply because it was more expensive than spreading straw and covering with landscape fabric although both were very effective at controlling erosion and helping to establish seed.

Good luck!

Larry

I was able to get 5 rolls of 8'x120' straw mats for $49 each at a place in Bedford IN which I though was a good price. I just got them to use on areas in my yard that will have the most running surface water and can see where covering my entire dam would have be very $$$$$. I know a lot of people that us last years straw and it's a great idea if you don't care about the seeds that come with it and like you said you need a tractor.

I just talked with a guy at Marshall Grain here in Ft. Worth who just recently broadcast annual rye on a new clay soil dam at his place. Said it was already germinating. He didn't recommend doing a perennial rye.
And, it's too late to do common bermuda--we'll put that in next May, early June.
Plus I've got some "wild" grasses (Johnson and others that I don't know what they are) already on the back side slope. Got some wild flowers on there, too.

It's pretty much too late for annual rye grass where you get early frosting, because it'll kill it. That's why I'm using winter wheat.

This is where I got my NWSG and flower mixtures
http://store.yahoo.com/stockseed/
The wildlife loves this stuff to.

At our place we blew mulch out using a gasoline powered chopper/blower from the local Soil & Water Conservation district. They rent this out pretty cheap. Most people use straw, but we used 2 to 4 year old hay square bales (straw may be better if you are worried about weed seed, but we had the hay and figured the weeds would show up sooner or later on their own).

We put in an outdoor riding arena at the same time as the pond (that's where the last 1/3 of the dirt from the pond went). We mulched the dam and all around the pond, but only the slopes around the arena (not the flats). The difference in grass growth after seeding was amazing - the mulched areas had 5 to 10 times more grass sprout successfully. So be sure and mulch (somehow) for erosion control.

If you can establish NWSG and wildflowers they will compete with other plants that are undesirable to wildlife quite well. If you’re planting right now an annual like annual rye grass or frost hardy winter wheat which makes it what to plant in the north you’ll be able to seed NWSG the next late spring or early summer by very lightly roughing up the surface, seeding, and restrawing. On an area such as a newly built dam that is more then likely subsoil and has very little seeds that will compete you’ll have very little competition. With NWSG being naturally selected for thousands of years for your area and its climate and with their 6-8’ root systems they’re perfect for erosion control for a dam. I seeded mine this way last year and I’m doing the same thing with the area that we moved the dirt to that we dug making our pond bigger last week.

The material in my dam doesn't seem fit for grass of any kind. The cored up clay holds a little growth, but with more and more rainfall, I end up with fingernail sized rock, embedded in clay. The erosion isn't very bad, and there are no leaks, I'm finally 6' away from reaching my spillway. My germination and watering is left up to Mother Nature, hopefully the sooner or later something will take. Without watering, it's seems futile.

My suggestion to anybody seeding a dam or any other highly erosible soil is to fertilize, lightly work up the soil, over seed and put something that is fast to germinate like wheat of annual rye grass with a good perennial mix, roll, straw, if you’re not get any rain water it (I ran 150' worth of extension cord to 1/2 hp sump pump with a 1 1/2 take off to my pond. If you don't have power get a gas power pump. Then run a sprinkler system using several of the cheap rotating sprinklers with spikes you stick in the ground.), and give it a good soaking three times a week. When you get some good germination fertilize again and if it starts to wash straw and straw again.
That’s the least I would do. Last weekend on the ½ acre area I just posted about I put 250 lb of Triple 19, 200 lb of winter wheat, 150 of grass seed, put up a 100’ silt fence around the pond and another 125’ half way up the hill, strawed heavily, and then I stapled down five 8x112’ straw and nylon erosion rolls out over the straw. The only reason I didn't do more was because I couldn’t think of anything else.

Something else that I’ve found that helps is if a small gully starts to form in a spot use a mixture of your grass of choose and a lot of annual rye grass then seed the area heavily and fill the small gully with straw.

glenB,i'm not sure if hydroseeding is what you call it,but i had a company come out and spray my levee with (fertiziler,2 types of seed,water and paper)they shot it out of a gun and when finished the dirt was green,anyway if this is what your asking i paid $1,500.00 to spray about 700-800' of levee and the grass grew in about 10 days.