Amendment of Playing Field Soil to Improve Soil Stability

Overview

Objectives/Goals My project was to determine if clay amendment can stabilize the soil and decrease soil displacement in front of a base when a player slides into it. Methods/Materials A soil collection frame was constructed and soil samples were collected for initial testing. The base path (area just in front of the base in line with the runner's path) was prepared using standard field technique: 1 liter of water from a pump sprayer to coat the top soil and smoothed with two passes of a field drag (or drag mat). The player completed 5 trials of a 40 foot running start and slide into the base. Soil displacement was collected after each trial using a flat head shovel and weighed. Soil was then returned to the base path. Two different amounts of clay kitty litter amendment were added to the top 3 inches of soil using a rake and foot tamp. With each change in amendment, soil samples were collected, the base path prepared using the water and drag method, and player sliding trials completed. Results The final sandy clay loam soil texture of 50% sand, 16.7-17.9% silt, and 32.1-33.3% clay had the lowest soil displacement and greatest stability. The initial sandy loam soil did not have enough clay to hold together when impacted by a baseball player's sliding friction. Conclusions/Discussion It is important to keep soil in place on a baseball field. Using cheap, natural clay kitty litter to stabilize the soil is a solution for schools that cannot afford name-brand, expensive baseball additives or specially formulated field soil.

Awards (1)

• Honorable Mention

Competition history

• CSEF 2016 Earth & Atmospheric Sciences (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0807

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Earth and Environmental Sciences projects
• CSEF Earth and Environmental Sciences projects
• Every CSEF 2016 project