Fall has traditionally been a time for homeowners to have their lawns aerated with a "coring" or "plugging" machine. It sounds like a good idea, and looks impressive when done, but does this practice alone actually provide any real long-term benefit to your soil or lawn? Does the soil actually become better aerated or more porous? According to Tamson Yeh, Ph.D, speaking in the Cornell Turfgrass ShortCutt (5/24/10), coring 2 times a year on a poor soil, over a 3 year period, showed no soil improvement benefit. So perhaps it is time to rethink the subject.
Improving soil aeration is extremely beneficial to lawns and gardens growing in clay or compacted soil. It will help water move down into the root zone easily. In well-aerated soils, beneficial soil microbes (that need air to survive) can thrive and create humus and improve soil structure. Roots get deeper and nutrients are exchanged more easily. Good topsoils are naturally aerated. Unfortunately, most suburban lots have had the topsoil stripped off and homeowners are left with a denser clay or subsoil in which to grow their lawns and gardens. If you were planting a new lawn in this clay you could till in tons of compost and other amendments to improve aeration. But on established lawns this is not an option.
We suggest trying a new approach to improving your soil quality, and we call this "liquid aeration". We've been doing liquid aerations, instead of coring, for 15 plus years, and have witnessed real soil improvement. Liquid Aeration is simply a solution of amendments that get into the root zone quickly and create microscopic pores and channels that help with water and air movement. It also adds organic ingredients that generate and feed microbes, leading to humus and a restructuring of the clay.
A good liquid aeration solution would contain, at minimum a good soil surfactant or wetting agent. This is a soap-like product that helps thin out water and reduce surface tension, breaking up dirt (clay) and creates microscopic channels for air and water to move through. Surfactants have been a staple in the agriculture and golf course industries for decades. There is a broad range in the quality and harshness of surfactants. We suggest using one that is completely biodegradable with no anti-bacterial components.
Temporary pores and channels in the clay will allow soil-building microbes to generate, especially if you put in a readily available organic food source. It is these microbes, along with earthworms, that do the work of creating humus and restructuring the clay into aggregates of soil with airspace between them. Carbon is the basic food for soil microbes. Compost contains a lot of available carbon, and can be made into a tea to mix with the surfactant. But what may be the best and most concentrated source of carbon is a substance called Humic Acid. The benefits of humic acid on normal soils are many, but when you combine humic acids with a good soil surfactant, clay soils will achieve these benefits much more rapidly.
You can add trace elements, hormones, plant growth stimulators (all found in kelp), molasses, enzymes and even beneficial root fungi to a liquid aeration solution. You can add fish emulsion if you want to fertilize a bit at the same time and don't mind the odor. When the soil is treated with a surfactant all of these things will work much better.
The worse the clay, the more often you will initially need to apply your liquid aeration. Due to the magnetic-like nature of microscopic clay particles, they will always want to re-bond. You need to keep them separated long enough for the microbes to generate and begin forming humus and soil granulation. For bad clays we suggest monthly applications, with perhaps 2 the first month. Keep this up and eventually you'll start to see obvious changes occurring in such things as drainage, root depth, soil structure and color too. Continued applications should work deeper and deeper into the ground. You can gradually decrease applications down to once or twice a year (clay always wants to re-bond) once the soil has improved to your satisfaction.
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