Using Nature Safe For Core Aeration

By Brian Lachowsky, Regional Sales Manager

 

Nature Safe is a natural for core aeration! Do you believe that? I do! Aeration is a necessary practice to maintain turf. Nature Safe is necessary to maximize the return your turf professional gets from core aeration. Aeration reduces thatch, reduces compaction and adds oxygen that is critical to root development. Nature Safe will increase the efficiency and effect of each of these critical benefits that you get from Aeration.

 

Nature Safe hastens the healing process from aeration, making this less painful for the superintendent. This pleases the Pro and the golfing public. But, more importantly, Nature Safe improves each of the functions that we aerate to accomplish:

§       Reduced Thatch – Nature Safe will stimulate microbial activity. A typical sand green may have a few hundred thousand microbes/gram of soil. Nature Safe will explode these populations. (NS Research Article 11,14) These aerobic bacteria and fungi will breakdown excess thatch and other organic material, releasing the nitrogen and anions bound up in this material. These same microbes will break down the Nature Safe and release the broad-spectrum fertility slowly and constantly over a period of many weeks. Thatch reduction aids in removing a disease vector, improves our ability to get water to the soil, reduces damage from traffic, ball marks, and mowing. I have seen turf that was excessively thatched out reduced to a near normal level in one growing season, in conjunction with good cultural practices.

§       Reduced Compaction – The action of soil microbes flocculates the soil creating pore space. This oxygenation is a critical component of any aeration. Nature Safe increases the efficiency of the aeration and contributes to improve soil porosity and oxygen holding capacity. The gas released by the soil microbes and the churning of the soil also serves to reduce compaction and resist re-compaction.

§       Nature Safe will reduce salts in your soil. Nature Safe has a lower salt index than conventional granular fertilizers. Your total applied salts will be lower. Nature Safe has a high level of Ca and aids in the leaching of salts from your soil. Paul Sachs in Ecological Golf Course Management says, “If large doses of soluble fertilizer are applied, the plants and soil organisms can be overwhelmed. High salt fertilizers can act like a sponge, drawing moisture away from the surrounding area. This can cause osmotic shock.” With the low buffering capacity of our high sand soil profiles, this can set your turf back significantly.

 

Nature Safe holds fertility in the root zone where the plants can access it. This accounts for a large part of the quicker recovery we almost always experience when using Nature Safe at aeration. Part of this is due to the improved incidence of root hairs due to the much lower applied salts.

 

Nature Safe is not soluble. No organic is soluble. This is a huge positive in low CEC soils. This means that the fertility is held in the soil profile and not lost to the drain tiles. Nature Safe releases slowly, through microbial degradation. This means that your turf will not surge and create thatch and disease problems. Rather, your turf will grow fundamentally stronger even as your soil condition is improved.

 

No other practice offers you the combination of convenience, affordability, and RESPONSE that using Nature Safe at Core-Aeration does. Don’t you owe it to yourself to incorporate this fundamentally agronomic and economic practice into your turf management program?