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Gypsum Soil Improvement Fertilizer 0708

Page history last edited by PBworks 15 years, 11 months ago

Gypsum: Soil Improver and Fertilizer

Description and Rationale
Biology
Potential Solutions
Bibliography

Description and Rationale

One of the many dreams that many kids and adults in sports have at Faith Academy is a nice soccer field that has beautiful grass with soft soil. At Faith Academy our main field, the White Field, is notoriously known as a horrible field with occasional clumps of grass and rock-hard soil. This is just one example of many fields like this in the Philippines, which is especially noticeable during hot season. Now the basis of a good field is the quality, aeration, and drainage of the soil. On many fields used for sports, if untreated, becomes clay-like or very compacted, which makes it hard for the grass to grow deep roots during hot season.

Now people may state that hard bumpy fields are sometimes just a fact of nature in the Philippines, but most of the time people would like to have a better field to play on. A better field improves the game and makes it more enjoyable. One example is when a soccer ball is kicked high in the air and a player is getting ready to trap the ball off of the bounce, then hits a patch of grass and bounces to the side. In this situation it may make the player frustrated, even the coach could get frustrated at the player for not trapping the ball when it really was not the player’s fault. There are many other cases when it frustrates players like passing the ball. A bad field does not only frustrate the players; it can also harm the players. For instance if the ground is really uneven and has potholes on the field a player could sprain his ankle if he’s not careful. Also what I have noticed is that if a school’s field is in bad shape the students sometimes don’t care about it and throw rocks on it as well as absent-mindedly scrape cleats on the grass pulling up grass and dirt when the field is wet. But when a school has a very nice field the students take more care of the field and don’t mess it up, they take pride in it and don’t want to lose that pride. Is there a fertilizer that could help make the soil softer and easier to maintain? Is there a way to improve a field to make it more enjoyable and safer to play on it? If a fertilizer could change the soil, would a better grass need to be planted, or would it improve the structure of the grass itself making it more resistant to wear?

Could one mineral cancel out many problems in fields that other fertilizers have failed to cancel out? One solution could be by using gypsum to break up the clay-like soil, which also would add nutrients and create a better soil. Although gypsum is more often thought of as used in building, like for walling, plasters, and in cement, recent observations have proven that gypsum can be used as an excellent fertilizer. It does not add as much nutrients as other fertilizers, but it specializes in breaking up the soil making it more aerated, allowing more drainage and root penetration. This results because the calcium in gypsum incites the clay particles to group together by the positive attraction of the calcium to the negative attraction of the clay soil resulting in better drainage. Another benefit of gypsum is that it adds sulfur. If this would prove true it could help break up the soil on fields that have hard compacted soil, which would cause the grass to grow better and last longer.

The initial purpose of this experiment will be to research the biology of the native grass species grown on the White Field and to test if gypsum will have any affect to the soil allowing the grass to grow more productively improving the field. I will be using firsthand observation on a section of the White Field to test the productivity of gypsum on the soil, and if given good results, report it to the Administration then possibly to the Board and give advice on how to improve our White Field. These initial results will then help guide others on a productive way to improve fields in which the soil has become dry and compacted.

It is hoped that the results from this experiment will prove excellent so that athletic fields, parks, and farm lands can have the potential to become a field thriving with beautiful grass or for the farms to have a bountiful harvest. It will then be able to withstand the tough wearing caused by our athletes and give them a field that they enjoy playing on while also giving them a pride in a great field for generations to come. Then this information can be passed on to others who have a problem similar to the White Field and can repair their fields.

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Biology

Common Names and Synonyms

Axonopus compressus is known as broadleaf carpetgrass. The people of the Philippines call it carabao grass or kulape in Tagalog. It is called this because it is a common grass in which animals, like the carabao which is a common grazing animal of Philippine farmers, can graze on without damaging the grass too severely. Other names include blanket grass, lawn grass, Louisiana grass, and tropical carpet grass.

Classification

Kingdom Plantae (Plants)

Subkingdom Tracheobionta (Vascular plants)

Superdivision Spermatophyta (Seed plants)

Division Magnoliophyta (Flowering plants)

Class Liliopsida (Monocotyledons)

Subclass Commelinidae

Order Cyperales

Family Poaceae (Grass family)

Genus Axonopus (carpetgrass)

Species Axonopus compressus (broadleaf carpetgrass)

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Morphology and Physical Description

Unlike other kinds of grasses, carabao grass forms a dense mat over the ground in which the height of the grass is around 2-15 cm. It usually never grows to be over 15 cm tall. It grows using stolons in which the grass buds from. Then roots form at each of the nodes. It has blades that are usually 4-18 mm wide and 2-16 cm long and are usually flat, but can be folded. On the blades there are some small hairs that run along the entire side of the blade.

Then at the end of the stem of grass there are usually three sometimes fours spikes that are 2-10 cm long. Seeds are attached along the length of the spike. The seeds are usually 2.0 – 3.5 mm long and 1 – 1.25 mm wide.

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Getting Food

Like most plants, it is autotrophic and gets its food from the sun’s energy and also pulls water and nutrients from the soil through its roots.

Reproduction

There are two ways in which carabao grass can reproduce. First it can reproduce vegetatively. This method allows the grass to spread faster, but it has to be in certain favorable conditions. The second method is by using seeds. This method is not as efficient and is a slower process of spreading. This is because carabao grass is not a very efficient seed producer.

Environmental Factors

Carabao grass is a very adaptable specie of grass. It can thrive on poor soil like sandy-loams or light clays as well as good soil. Also it can grow in shady or very sunny places from ˉ27° – 27° latitude with an average temperature of 13.5° – 27° C. It grows best in acidic soil with pH of 5.0 – 5.5 – 7. It does not grow very well in salty soil or where it heavily rains and has floods.

This type of grass is not susceptible to many major diseases or pests but can be attacked by the grass webworm (Herpetogramma licarsisalis, Lepidoptera, Pyralidae), which occurs usually during rainy weather. It is also an alternative host for rice tungro spherical waikavirus and Rhizoctonia solani.

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Origin and Distribution

It first originated in southern United States, Mexico, and Brazil. Then from these two places it was introduced to tropical and subtropical countries like the Philippines, India, South Africa, Indonesia, Australia, the Pacific Islands, and especially on the west coast of Africa.

Importance to People

It can be used for lawns, turfs, or pastures since it is able to withstand heavy grazing, lots of shade or in the sun, also it can grow on very poor soil. Carabao grass can grow very well on poor soil which can compete with some weeds and maybe suppress them. It provides a great ground coverage since it densely covers the ground. It also recovers quickly from fire, tear and grazing, making it a versatile grass.

Survivability and Endangered Status

Because carabao grass can adapt to different soils and recovers quickly, it makes it very hard to become endangered. Also because it can thrive in poor soil conditions, it moves to the poor soil where many kinds of grasses and shrubs can not survive creating a less competitive atmosphere towards other plants. It also can grow with several other kinds of grasses without creating much competition between the two types of species.

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Potential Solutions

Gypsum is a very common mineral. With this in mind, are there some uses for this available mineral? Gypsum is a key ingredient for sheetrock which is an insulator and fire protector in houses. Its primary use is in drywall where tons of drywall is used when building houses; but according to research, around 17% is wasted during the installation and manufacturing process. Could the scrap gypsum board, also known as drywall, of old buildings be recycled instead of filling up the land fills? Could Gypsum be used as a fertilizer for plants? There is some controversy whether recycling the gypsum from drywall into the soil is environmentally safe, but gypsum is also sold as just plain gypsum for fertilizers. Below are two possibilities besides the main use for gypsum.

Possibility 1 FARMING

An article on a New Zealand website states that gypsum is used on many farms there. Gypsum’s primary use for farming is to break up the hard clay-like soil in New Zealand. With the breaking up the soil several benefits are made. One of the benefits includes a deeper root penetration, and water infiltration allowing the soil to dry faster so it can be worked on. With these benefits come many other benefits; one of them being a control in the balance of pH. It supplies two key nutrients to the plants—sulfur and calcium; it also enhances the availability of other essential nutrients.

Advantages:

1. Gypsum is a common mineral and is readily available to people. It can either be taken from gypsum boards (drywall boards) or bought from a gardening shop.

2. If people use the scraps of gypsum boards for the fertilizer, it would reduce the trash build up in landfills.

3. Improves the soil allowing better root penetration and water infiltration.

4. Controls the pH of the soil.

5. Provides calcium and sulfur for the plants which strengthens the plants cell walls increasing its resistance to diseases and insects.

6. Gypsum makes other essential nutrients available for the roots to absorb.

7. In Genesis 2:15 God told Adam to take care of the garden, because Adam was in charge over all the animals and plants. This big responsibility is carried on to us his descendants and now to take care of Earth, we need to make sure we use our resources wisely and not fill the Earth with trash.

Disadvantages:

1. No first hand experiment was taken proving all of the benefits of gypsum.

2. If the farmers used the gypsum from drywall, they would need lots of scraps and it would require lots of work breaking it up.

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Possibility 2 ATHLETIC FIELDS AND PARKS (My Action Step)

Also from the same article came the idea that gypsum could be used for Faith Academy’s soccer field. At Faith Academy our biggest soccer field is called White Field. The White Field is known especially for its rock hard soil during Hot Season and has unhealthy grass as well making it seem sometimes like a dirt field. Taking my initial findings on the benefits of gypsum, I conducted an experiment on the White Field taking two plots of grass 3 ft by 3 ft on the sidelines so as to not disturb PE classes and the girl’s soccer teams. In both plots I dug into the soil about 2-3 inches and in one plot evenly scattered about a 1/6 inch layer of gypsum, which I had smashed up from a drywall sheet. Then I placed the grass back on top and watered each plot with 4 buckets from Mr. Bugbee’s (my biology teacher) watering can Monday through Friday and sometimes on Saturday.

To test the soil I took a sample of dirt from each plot and did some tests. For the first test I took the sample of dirt and put in a sifter which sifted it into five layers of dirt. Then I tested the three of the layers of dirt’s water permeability using a funnel pouring 50 mL of water on the soil for two minutes.

Here are some other observations after the first week. Before I watered that day, I dug up the soil and noticed that the experimental soil was still moist, while the control soil was dry. This proves that soil treated with gypsum is able to hold water longer than soil that is not treated with gypsum. This was a new discovery—a benefit that gypsum had on soil; I never read that it helped to hold water in the soil. Also after the second week when I dug up the dirt again, the roots of the experimental grass had penetrated the soil further into the soil than the control grass. Although a little disappointing to me, the experimental grass did not look any healthier above ground than the control grass.

Control Grass (Beginning) Experimental Grass (Beginning)

Control Grass (After 2 weeks) Experimental Grass (After 2 weeks)

Advantages

1. Gypsum is a common mineral and is readily available to people. It can either be either taken from gypsum boards (drywall boards) or bought from a gardening shop.

2. The gypsum would soften the soil loosening it, making it easier for grass to grow and for better water penetration.

3. The roots of the grass are able to penetrate the soil easier, essentially making it healthier by making it able to withstand more wearing from the athletes or every day people playing on the field.

4. Gypsum provides calcium and sulfur for the grass, making them healthier.

5. If people use the scraps of gypsum boards for fertilizer, it would reduce the trash build up in landfills, recycling it. The Bible tells us to take care of the Earth, so we should conserve the gypsum scraps.

Disadvantages:

1. I was not able to research and find the cost of a bag of gypsum, so I couldn’t say if applying gypsum would be worth its cost for the results in the grass.

2. Do to lack of time and resources, more tests should be taken to test the health of the grass.

3. There were no visible differences in the appearance of the grass besides more root penetration.

4. To have the gypsum begin its work on the soil, it requires a supply of water, especially when it is first applied. Sometimes parks and athletic fields do not have a good irrigation system.

5. In my experiment I took the layer of grass off then applied the gypsum to the soil, so would the people in charge of the field have to dig up the layer of grass for the entire field for the best results? Based on the information obtained by my experiment, the question is left unanswered. Another test would have to take place in order to find out if gypsum could be applied on top of the soil.

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