I haven't tried that but have tried finding other products with a more uniform particle size. I haven't gotten much past the research stage. A couple products or companies you can look at are play ball and axis by ep minerals and pro's choice has a few products that look promising.

Travis

@Travis I wrote to both companies so let us see what I get back.

Yes, you definitely want to ask for the "professional line" of products. The professional series - across different vendors - appear to be specified with fewer fines, probably exactly because of the lower adhesion of water to the reduced surface area of few larger particles in the Pro products.

I have heard that Pro's choice has fewer fines but I have not been able to locate a local supplier. Turface is very variable bag-to-bag. It was become worse over the years.

@tropicofcancer Call your local irrigation supply company and special-order Turface MLB (NOT MVP). MLB=Major League Baseball=Professional Product. If you ask Turface, some people there say MLB is not made anymore. If you talk to the distributors, they can order it. It's very frustrating when a company doesn't know it makes a product, but MLB is probably something ordered by fewer than 100 customers worldwide, so they don't think of it as distribution product. I am very hopeful that MLB is going to be a big improvement for all of us in Bonsai / container gardening.

@westes did you order some? If so please report back on how it is. Also if you did what was the price compared to MVP?

@tropicofcancer from the few bags I've bought I've noticed they're pretty variable too. Once you start looking there's several companies that produce similar products.

I've not tried it, but Bonsai Jack (out of FL) 1/4 Turface in bulk and sells it as Monto Clay. He cant legally call it Turface due to copyright laws. He sells to bonsai market and I've not seen nothing but positive reviews of his products. The down side is that it's a bit pricey if you are filling several pots as opposed to a few wee bonsai pots.

I use the OptiSorb and I'm happy with it. I screen it and and use the 1/4" for bonsai but only use bug screen for regular containers.

@travis I was to pick up my first MLB bag today. It was twice as expensive. But already there are problems. My local irrigation store says the bag they were sent does not exactly match the order. Turface itself says the product is no longer made. It may be the store had an old order list and it cannot be fulfilled.

For me slight variability is not a problem. The problem is about half the bag of Turface MVP is unusable.

@mblan13 It is all about money. Bonsai Jack's product would cost over $130 for a 50 pound bag and that is before the very considerable shipping costs. He's not even in the running.

Okay, hot off the press, here is a photo with Turface MVP on the left and Turface MLB on the right. The MLB has a more uniform particle size, and the MLB appears to have about half the fines. I will pay someone this weekend to sift the entire bag of MLB and I'll see how many fines we produce from that.

The MLB comes in a white bag with no name on it, and it does not have a correct SKU either. The company I bought from claims to deal in it and they are reputable so I am going on trust, but I cannot exclude that this is some other product than what I was trying to buy.

Turface MLB was around $27 against a $33 list price for a 50-pound bag, and the big win is I am not paying for shipping.

Thanks for the info. I have to buy turface soon and so I will check if they also carry the MLB. I am also intrigued by the Pro's Choice Red because of the color.

@tropicofcancer Pro's Choice Red is only about 10% clay? I believe that is more of an aggregate and it would not be a functional substitute for Turface. I believe they use that material as a border material for playing fields, to signal a change in texture as players near the field. It's kind of a strange application.

I have really researched the Turface product line. MLB is the only product they make that is a hard fired clay that screens out fines.

So what is the other 90% in Pro's Choice? In any case, it may still be useful for a variation in gritty mix as long it does not break down into mud quickly.

@tropicofcancer Here we are running into the disaster that is Turface marketing. Please point to the exact page on their website that you are referring to as "Pro's Choice Red". They have so many names for the same product on their website, and they sometimes call the same product by three different names.

http://proschoice1.com/products/infield-conditioners/

The first product is the Pro's Choice Red. It is also fired clay - they do not tell whether it is high fired or not. I suspect it is close to Turface since the purpose of both is the same - turf for playing fields.

@tropicofcancer Sorry, I thought you were referring to a line of Turface products. You can very clearly see in the one photo on that page that the Pro's Choice Red is LOADED with fines. Can't you clearly see in the photo I took yesterday of MLB how most of the fines are missing?

That's the one I got. I want to try the ones toward the bottom of the page that are the professional select line. Those look promising if they're the same material.

I got a bag of the Red and a bag of Turface All Sport today both for <$13. I will sift each of the bag sometime later next week probably. I will post a pic of samples later tonight. I visited two distributors and both carry some of each brand. Both claimed that both Turface and Pro'Choice get their clay from the same place - have no other confirmation though.

Westes: Without sifting the entire bag it is hard to tell just by pictures. Product settles during transit. Often near the bottom there will be more fines. Second, the smaller particles are often useful in small sized bonsai. The smaller particles can also be used to nice slabs, faux stones, hypertufa for bonsai pots and displays. Third, different colored durable particles are also useful as top dressing bonsai pots for aesthetic reasons. So that is why I am interested in all these type of products. I also look for grit substitutes in the same way for same reasons. But grit substitutes are harder to locate. Lava and pumice play a role in between grit and turface.

I presume your target is to find something that does not screening. If the price is right, I would not mind that. On the other hand, I do not mind sifting either because the fines are useful to me in other ways.

@tropicofcancer I have a worker coming over on Saturday to sift through the MLB blend. I will report the result.

The bottom line for me is - if the fines are a minuscule percentage of the whole MLB bag - I can bypass the entire sifting process. That for me would be a huge win. If the percentage is not small, then I end up having to sift the bag anyway, and I lose a similar amount of time on that activity.

How are you using the Turface fines? I actually gave some thought to using them as a replacement for sand in a paver installation, and then to have groundcover planted into the gaps. Maybe Turface fines are too water-retentive for anything other than seeds?

I use them as replacement for sand as you said. But in my case I use it for hypertufa pots. The mix is cement, turface fines, peat and perlite fines. Makes a very porous pot that can be used for various alpine plantings. As a paver sand it should work well too.

@tropicofcancer if you're looking for colors you can look at Safe T Sorb which is a tan/grey color. I haven't used it in a planting yet but I sifted some and it survived the freeze test. It says it's calcined clay also.

A little off topic but do you have any pictures of your hypertufa pots? I've been thinking of trying to make some.

Travis

Thanks Travis. I heard of Safe T Sorb but never really made an attempt to locate a supplier. I will look into it.

I looked for some pictures of some hypertufa stuff. And I found a few and others I cannot locate yet. Here are a few:

Looking at the samples I got for Pro's Choice it looks like the Professional Blend (called Pro Red) does not have any fines. Red has most, Select has a bit less. I have not opened the bag I got yet.

@tropicofcancer Then I guess they did not photograph what they sent to you on their website. I blew up the photos of every one of their Professional Blend and could clearly see lots of fines in all of them.

Okay, we filtered the Turface MLB, and that was a spectacular success. The photo below shows that the entire 50-pound bag of Turface MLB produced only a minuscule amount of fines, running it through a 1/12" filter. What's even more impressive is that those "fines" are probably 90% over 1/16" inch. The fines were just much larger pieces than the fines I get filtering Turface MVP.

Taking this all into account, I think I could use the Turface MLB product without any filtering, thus it would save me huge amounts of time. It also suggests to me that Turface MLB could be used for a huge soil amendment project without any pre-processing. If I buy it by the pallet then I also get a huge discount.

If there is anyone in the San Francisco Bay Area who wants to split a pallet load with me please contact me. If I hear back from someone in the next few months I am ready to do that.

Thanks. Looks very good. From my side it looks like the Pro's Choice Red has lots of fines. All Sport Turface seems like normal MVP version but will not know unless I sift it all. Sometimes next week I will do it. I will also try to get a bag of the Pro Blend to see if it is any better.

@tropicofcancer thank you for the pictures! That's definitely something I want to try and make this year. If you end up getting some of the select let me know how that is. I'd like to pick some up too but the supplier is over an hour away.

@westes do you think any Turface supplier can get MLB, or is it just something that company you found works with? I'm wondering since you said it was the incorrect SKU? If they're still selling it I may ask if my irrigation place can order a couple bags in.

@Travis Turface has a distributor locator on their site. The problem is going to be whether your distributor has anyone in their internal system that deals in that product. Turface doesn't let them order single bags. In my case, the distributor has an office about 30 miles away that keeps stock on MLB and was able to move a single bag sideways within the distributor's network. You can always special order by the pallet, but how many people need 40 bags of Turface?

The much bigger shock for me was hearing that Turface said they no longer made the MLB mix. Is anyone able to confirm that this is true? If that is right, then whatever MLB stock is still inside the distributor network may be the only stock that any of us ever gets to buy.

Travis: I think Select is only slightly better than the Red. The Pro Blend looks a bit more promising. As for hypertufa, research on google and there are many recipes. Experiment with small objects first. You can use variety of household objects as molds.

Westes: I will check whether any MLB is available locally. But may be I would not find any depending on any existing inventory.

@tropicofcancer The question to ask your distributor is "Does Turface still make this product, and can you still order it?"

I have had my local Agway order a few bags of Turface for me.

@Vladimir this topic is about a different type of Turface that no one on Gardenweb has (apparently) tried before. Those of us who use Turface have been using Turface MVP. I located a batch of their higher end product Turface MLB, and that is what he is not sure that he can locate.

I am also not clear if the Turface MLB product has identical water retention characteristics to the Turface MVP. I am starting to suspect that MLB may be slightly different, but I do not have proof. If anyone else buys Turface MLB and does a water retention test comparing Turface MLB to Turface MVP, please share the data in this thread.

I finally sifted Turface All Sports. Approximately the proportions, by volume, are these: less than 1/16 (window screen) - 10%, 1/16-1/8 - 50%, greater than 1/8 - 40%. Not too bad. Didi it yesterday and is all used up in my repotting spree.

I have not done the Pro's Choice Red yet. It would be lot worse I think.

I only sieve through 1/16 inch screen. Al Tapla does also: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/als-gritty-mix-a-learning-experinece-dsvw-vd~1382584

Turface has a lot of variability in sizes and so I always sift in three parts. The fines ( < 1/16 - although I think it is probably closer to 1/12) get discarded and I use the larger two fractions in different proportions. Usually half and half for most plants. For conifers and cactus I tend to use the smaller (1/16-1/8) a lot less or none at all. These smaller particles will cause perched water but usually small. Al also noted that somewhere and he also noted that for the sake of reducing costs it makes sense (considering very small PWT effect) to use it. Unless you are doing bonsai that extra control over PWT is not worth it.

@vladimir I believe @tapla is screening turface through a 1/8" screen for the gritty mix