PACE Turf - Turfgrass Information Center


S-curve with sand particle size of topdressing sand and OM2 sand

View Larger

This chart shows the percentage of material passing each sieve size, creating an S-shaped curve. This is one way to plot particle size distributions, and by looking at where the line falls, one can note a few things. For example, the higher or the farther to the right the point is, that would be a finer material. The coarser materials will be lower and to the left.

One can check how a particular sand fits against the USGA Recommendations fine or coarse limits. One can also see how a sand changes over time, or how the topdressing sand differs from the sand in the rootzone. This shows a topdressing sand plotted along with the sand fractions from the top 2 cm of the rootzone after an OM246 total organic material test. Both materials are close to the USGA Recommendations fine limit; by looking at the chart it is evendent that the rootzone material is slightly more fine than the topdressing sand.




Visit PACE Turf on Facebook! Visit PACE Turf on YouTube! Follow PACE Turf on Twitter!