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It may sound silly, but like many other things we put effort into, your lawn is only going to flourish if you take the proper steps. To grow healthfully and beautiful, lawns and pastures require some of the same things people do, and most important is air and food. Pulling a plug leaves holes for rain water to gather in, which helps with increasing nourishment and decreasing compaction, which is great for the roots. The pulled plugs lay on the surface until rain causes decomposition of the surfaced organic matter, and it spreads on the surface, providing good food. Throw on some fresh seed, fertilizer, and lime, depending on what your soil test indicates, and that's icing on the well prepared cake. Using a quality, capable aerator essentially helps to provide both of those. Weight, along with a proper design, is what allows the aerator to function well, and both of those qualities are absent from many competitors in the industry. At EA, we believe in providing you with the best of everything by combining the best designs and material, which produces the happiest lawn loving, feeding, air providing, tractor driven tool you can spend money on.
EA Xtreme Independent Wheel Lawn Aerator Plugger Overview
If you demand the absolute best aeration tool for your tractor and lawn, our EA Xtreme lawn aerator line is the only choice. The independent wheel design is heavier, has more core plug tines, and allows you to gradual curves around your beds and landscaping. The core plugger tines are mounted inside stacked, Grade 50 USA structural steel. Each independent wheel is fully greasable and mounted onto a solid, heavy shaft, which is mounted onto greasable pillar block bearings.
EA Xtreme Alternating Depth Independent Wheel Lawn Aerator Plugger Overview
Wanna up the Xtreme to the highest level? The alternating depth model features everything our other Xtreme model does, PLUS the addition of double the core plug tines, which are countersunk. Why would one want countersunk tines? This is a little known, almost magical feature, which you'll not see elsewhere. Obviously, doubling the number of tines will result in more holes and surface agitation, which is great, but countersinking the additional tines produces shallow, 2" tines, which maximizes seed germination. The deeper tines will pull 4" plugs, which is great for providing aeration, so combine those, and you have the ULTIMATE combo for making your lawn great, beautiful and happy!
 
EA Drum Style Lawn Aerator Plugger Overview
If you want something that's easier on your budget, yet still heavy and very capable for transforming your lawn or pasture, then our drum style unit is a great choice. It features the same strong, high tensile, quality tines as our Xtreme models, and they're individually mounted onto the solid, sand filled drum, with just the right amount of room for movement, which kicks out the plugs efficiently. Sand filled...Did you catch that? Yes, instead of a light, hollow drum, which some manufacturers install a threaded plug into, so you can fill with water, we go the extra mile to create a worry free, easy, smart plugger that you'll not have to worry about adding weight to. Each one of these is filled with zero moisture play sand, which is very dense and heavy, to produce excellent plugging results for you. It takes more labor, material, and also adds to our shipping costs, but at EA, we totally know it's worth if to offer our customers the very best!
Tractor Lawn Aerators & Core Pluggers
Aeration refers to the extent of air gaps in soil. Aeration commonly refers to the process of using mechanized equipment to either puncture the soil with spikes (spike aeration) or remove approximately 1" X 2" cores of soil from the ground (core aeration). Spike aeration involves the use of an aeration attachment with spikes up to 3" or more in length.
Spike aeration is sometimes used to address drainage issues in areas with turf. Core aeration is done on turf areas as a means of reducing turf compaction, reducing thatch buildup, improving the infiltration of water/nutrients, and creating an environment where grass seed can have direct contact with the soil.
PRODUCTS IN PRACTICE: Lawn aeration for all seasons
While using a lawn aerator is a common enough practice these days, many turf professionals restrict this important cultivation practice only to the spring or fall growing seasons. While there is no doubt that using a lawn aerator during both seasons is recommended, aeration is, in fact, a practice that can and should be done year-round.
Gaining a broader understanding of the important benefits of year-round aeration can prove useful to turf professionals.
The case for year-round lawn aeration
It's important to point out that lawn aeration is not handled in the same manner in every region. Both the method of aeration and the timing are heavily influenced by location. Our lawn aerator selection is sure to meet your needs
A season-by-season guide
Aeration is most useful when turf plants are actively growing and their demand for oxygen is high. Ironically, the warm season is the same timeframe when the grounds professional has to fight for access with the sports field user or golfer, because of the perception that aeration can cause a disruption of play.
In the spring, grounds professionals have their best opportunity to aggressively attack that agronomic evil of evils, compaction. Compaction causes much-needed air pockets within the soil to close, providing less room for oxygen and water to move through the root zone.
As a side note: A variety of aeration methods (solid-tine versus pulling cores, for example), often used in combination, can be used to combat this common hurdle. The temptation to over-simplify aeration practices should be avoided as there is no one perfect method for getting the job done; each practice has its own benefits and drawbacks.
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Deep tine
To eliminate hardpan conditions, a deep-tine lawn aerator method that shatters the soil or creates sideways fissures may be necessary; this approach, which creates a network of fairly large pores, is most useful in the spring. It should be repeated during the remainder of the year if the turf suffers a heavy degree of use.
Such aggressive aeration techniques will have few drawbacks in the spring, when deep-rooting grasses will benefit most and turf is most likely to heal quickly.
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Hollow core
The fall — along with spring — is traditionally one of the times to use hollow-tine aeration (pulling cores). One of the most common reasons for hollow-tine aeration during this season is conducting a soil-exchange program; that is, altering the soil profile by removing soil cores and replacing them with a suitable topdressing. Everything Attachments offers many lawn aerator models for Core Aeration.
This approach permits pulling plugs ranging from 3 inches (for routine maintenance and thatch control) down to 10 inches (soil-replacement purposes).
Also useful in the fall is deep-tine aeration, down to a depth of 16 inches. Solid tines tend to penetrate native soils more effectively, breaking more easily through the hardpan layer and helping to shatter compaction, particularly if the turf has suffered heavy summer use.
Contrary to popular opinion, lawn aeration may also be effectively employed in the winter, depending, of course, on whether the ground is frozen. This is an often-overlooked opportunity to tackle compaction problems; a near-deserted field is an inviting target for the grounds professional armed with the right aeration equipment.
Deep or solid tines are useful at this time to help reduce or eliminate pending conditions, helping improve the ability of the soil to irrigate itself.
Depending on the location of the field, the type of turf and the usage its put to, wintertime aeration can mean your turf is in playable condition — when most of your competitors' fields or courses won't be.
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