At left, a closeup of the erosion problem; at right, Hunter Bruce, owner of SpreadRite, walks the rutted site before work begins.Photo: Profile Products
Six years after a planned residential development near Tallassee, Alabama, stalled – slipping into foreclosure before the first house was built – major erosion at the site attracted the attention of state environmental officials. Eventually, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management compelled the owner of the 2.7-acre tract to take action to prevent the site from washing away.
Profile Products says the extraordinary success of the remediation job, which it’s now using as a case study on its website, is owing to one of its new topsoil alternatives, ProGanics
By April 17, only a month after work began, the site had been stabilized, with vegetation beginning to take hold.Photo: Profile Products
Biotic Soil Media. “The decision (to use the product) not only eliminated the need for nearly 100 truckloads of dirt, slashing material costs by 40 percent and application time from five days to one,” a Profile spokeswoman says, “but also turned the site into a field of green in just a few weeks.”
Profile Products claims patent-pending ProGanics is “the world’s most advanced engineered soil media,” accelerating the development of depleted soils and substrates that exhibit low organic matter, low nutrient levels and limited biological activity.
The Birmingham-based firm hired to remediate the Alabama site, SpreadRite, began work March 19 of this year by grading the deep gullies that had formed on the property. The company applied ProGanics on March 25 and by April 17 the site was stabilized and vegetation had begun to appear. “It’s almost crazy to say that after one month, we achieved 100-percent stabilization,” says SpreadRite owner Hunter Bruce. “There’s no way this site would be growing the way it is without ProGanics.”
Other products from Profile also were used to complete the job. Slopes were covered with ProMatrix EFM. Flatter areas were covered with wheat straw mulch and anchored in place with Profile Tornado Tack ST-1000. While landscaping professionals may not have heard of ProGanics as yet, they’re probably familiar with Profile Products’ Turface porous ceramic soil conditioners, which are designed for use in planting beds, containers and for turf maintenance.
Headquartered in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, Profile Products touts its commitment to research and development in boasting that its products’ technology improves virtually all growing media.
