overseeder dethatching

[zurfsturfcare]

i just bought an overseeder and tried it out at my house and it pulled up a ton of thatch? Is this normal? If I aerated first, would that help keep that down?

[ponyboy]

it is normal if your lawn has a lot of thatch in it. we hand rake the lawn as not to disturb the seed as much, and i hope you did two passes with it 1 being on a 45degree angle. Areating first wont make a difference except you wont see the cores after you run them over with the lawn renavator- overseeder. BTW what type did you buy, we run lescos and ryan areators. I usually do my renovations and seedind in the late summer early fall because we apply pre-m now. i found it easier to get and keep the lawn in controll weed wise and do full chemical programs through out the year and just seed in sept then seed now an have tons of crab grass in the summer and then its a pain to kill it and you will have to seed again any way just me though

[turfcobob]

Before you seed a lawn with a slicing seeder you should test the lawn for thatch. If you are trying to seed through more then 3/8 inches of thatch you will have a huge amount of debris to clean up and may have problems getting a good seed application. I will walk across a lawn in hard sole boots and when the lawn feels soft like a carpet I take a sample with a core sampler to see how thick the thatch is. If it is more than 3/8 of an inch I dethatch it first rather than fight the thatch.

[White Gardens]

In OH right now, I'm guessing your lawn is pretty brown.

So yes, a seeder will pull up a lot of thatch right now when the root system is week and old grass is prevalent.

I'd wait until the 2nd week of April and I'm sure you'll have better results.