Fertilisation & Agronomy

This document sets out the agronomic basis for growing plants in an EPIC sand profile: which elements a plant needs and why, what to aim for, how to check a commercial fertiliser against that target, and how nutrients are delivered through the profile rather than across its surface.

It is written for agronomists, turf managers, landscape consultants and design engineers who already know the EPIC profile, which is specified in the Technical Series and not repeated. Its technical basis is the agronomy papers of Jonas Z. Sipaila, founder and inventor of the EPIC system, and it gives values in imperial units with metric equivalents throughout.

Ten parts cover the washed sand profile as a growing medium, the Hoagland solution as the nutrient reference, a benchmarking method worked on two commercial fertilisers (one inorganic, one organically derived), the eight-step sub-fertilisation procedure through a recirculating reservoir, water management and the moisture and air profile, aerobic conditions in the root zone, and the aeration of turf.

The later parts set out an annual maintenance programme compared with those of three award-winning athletic fields in New York, Pennsylvania and Colorado, a recommended laboratory analytical suite, the diagnosis of turf stress, and the agronomic outcomes specific to a lined, sub-irrigated profile, including saline and reclaimed water. Two appendices give the conversion factors and the source documents.