What are we seeing from the aeration plugs?

[Smallaxe]

Originally Posted by Exact Rototilling

Okay...wouldn't excessive thatch due to high nitrogen fert and excessive watering.... count as organic matter.

What happens in my area is topsoil is stripped off during development of tract housing and very little.is.put.back. Many lawns are hydro seeded on.top of.gravely and sandy combo poor.soils. People resort to Heavy use.of.Scotts type products and over.water to get.a.hyper dark.green.lawn.
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Well, technically, living thatch is not really part of the soil, in that it grows above the soil... and since it is made up completely of living and dead, roots and stem, one could say that living thatch is 100% organic matter...

I would still pull plugs 3" deep in the hopes that over time at least that much soil could support actual healthy root growth, by getting some OM into that gravel... we deal with areas of sand that I mulch mow, overseed, and add compost every Fall and it seems to help over time... even the lawns that won't pay for aeration, get the roots a little deeper...

[RigglePLC]

I checked for deep roots on a neighbor's lawn which had a clump of tall fescue. Sandy soil. I did not find deep roots. The area gets the overspray from my irrigation. In actuality, the rest of his lawn is not irrigated.

[kirk1701]

Is it best to leave the plugs on the lawn or pick them up?

I had a use for the soil so I was going to pick them up and dump into a low area where a tree used to be and the roots have rotted; hence created a low spot

[Smallaxe]

In the sandy soils I have, I was able to find roots in the 3" plug, but they were not very thick... interestingly enough, the topsoil on the irrigated lawns, that were over-irrigated and over-fertilized also had roots in the 3" plugs that weren't very thick...
I've always plugged in the summer,,, so it will be interesting to see how the root mass looks at the end of the season...

I don't see that it would be a problem removing the plugs, if you wanted to...

[Exact Rototilling]

Originally Posted by kirk1701

Is it best to leave the plugs on the lawn or pick them up?

I had a use for the soil so I was going to pick them up and dump into a low area where a tree used to be and the roots have rotted; hence created a low spot

Ideally let the plugs stay there for the purpose of dirt/soil top dress over the top of the lawn for soil microbe vectorto help breakdown of undesirable thatch layer and/or to help seed soil.contact for over seeding.

For example this last.June I did a pseudo experimental over seed. 3-4 pass aeration with Plugr® 850 which would require 6-8 total passes with a rolling tine unit. Anyhow client had a thatch layer over 1"+ in some areas. I provided the seed even for $120 for a small area. Last steep was run my BOP Quickie 32 dually WB mower with Oregon ® G6 Gatorade blades to liberate the soil from the thatch plugs. Worked okay....
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[kirk1701]

Thanks guys