Benefits of Microbial Aeration
- 100% Organic and Natural
- Increased Air and Nutrient Penetration
- No More Utility Markings
- Increased Water Filtration
- Less Puddling in Lawns
- No Messy Cores
- Better Root Development
- Better Overall Lawn Health
Microbial Aeration Introduction
What is Microbial Aeration?
Microbial aeration is a new technology in the Green Industry that uses microbes to aerate the soil under your turf without disturbing the surface of the lawn. The product, is a concentrated consumable carbon food source for soil microbes.
The Issue with Soil Compaction
Poor water retention and a lack of airflow is the main issue when compaction is mentioned. But if you’ve been involved in turf for a long time, you’ll also consider that heavy thatch accumulation, — which can, among other things, lead to the lawn rooting in the thatch layer instead of the soil—poor root development and disease issues are also much more prevalent in compacted soils.
Of course, the only way to relieve soil compaction, up until now, was mechanical aeration where machines with tines are used to remove soil plugs from the ground and deposit them on the surface, leaving an open hole that allows water and air in.
Why Aeration Wasn’t a Great Solution
Sprinkler systems, drain tiles, dog fences, anything that is underground, must be marked so it’s not damaged. After the job is done the soil plugs lay on top of the lawn and can lead to muddy conditions that interfere with mowing or can be brought into the house by pets. Areas of the lawn can be missed as well, either because the aerator won’t fit or because there’s a steep slope that’s not safe to run the machine on. Basically, aeration is a hassle, but it’s necessary to relieve soil compaction.
Or it was. But it doesn’t have to be anymore. There have been some amazing advances in the study of microbial activity in soils and we now have an alternative to mechanical aeration that gets the same results without all the hassle.
What Happens to a Lawn After Aeration?
Before getting too deep into Microbial Aeration and its benefits, I want to explain what happens when the lawn is mechanically aerated because there’s a lot of misunderstanding about it. To start, the physical act of pulling a plug of soil out of the ground provides no benefit. None. It doesn’t relieve compaction or break down thatch any more than digging a hole would. It’s what happens to the microbes living in the soil that has positive benefits.
Soil is full of microbial life. When you pull a plug (or dig a hole I suppose) you expose those soil microbes to air and in doing so increase their rate of reproduction exponentially. More microbes create more activity, and it’s that microbial activity that creates the benefits of soil loosening and thatch decomposition. All we are doing by mechanically aerating the yard is activating the microbes in the soil. Once the plugs have been broken down and the holes refilled, this activity drops off very quickly.
The other way to stimulate these microbes is to feed them. We do this by introducing carbon into the soil (composting). Many home lawns are lacking carbon in the soil because there isn’t a lot of dead plant matter decaying in those areas. After years of removing carbon from the soil without replacing it, the microbes start to decline. It’s why so many older homes tend to develop compacted lawns that are thin and struggle to maintain good density. The soil lacks carbon.
Traditional composting is widely used by gardeners to introduce carbon and other nutrients into the soil. But it does have drawbacks. Adding composts to lawns, for instance, is difficult and time-consuming. Materials used for composting can often be contaminated by bits of plastic, weed seeds, destructive insects, and even though they’re thought to be organic they can over have residual pesticides present.