Keep Your Turf Cool (and Healthy) With Solid Tine Aeration

Keep Your Turf Cool (and Healthy) with Solid Tine Aeration

There’s a right time (and a right tine) for each type of aeration. Core aeration is recommended for periods of vigorous growth. However, during high stress periods such as mid-summer, solid tine aeration may be the best choice for your course.

Solid tine aeration opens the soil without removing a core. It’s an effective way to increase gas exchange and drainage at the root zone during periods of high temperature, since it is less stressful to the turf than core aeration.

Why Aerate?

Turf requires four essential growth factors for optimal growth: sunlight, air, water and nutrients. A well-designed aeration program will help you maintain proper water and air movement within the soil — encouraging deep, dense rooting for a firm, consistent turf. Here’s what solid tine aeration can do for your course:

Benefits of Solid Tine Aeration

1. Improves gas exchange. Solid tine aeration opens the turf, alleviating compaction and allowing efficient gas exchange between the soil and the atmosphere.
2. Minimizes turf damage and downtime. Because no cores are removed, the disturbance to the turf surface is minimal. Best of all, the turf can be used immediately after aeration.
3. Can be done mid-season. Solid tine aeration minimizes turf stress, so it’s well suited for summer temperatures.
4. Increases surface drainage (infiltration and percolation). Aeration allows water to move freely between plant roots and the environment for vigorous growth.
5. Requires less manpower. Solid tine aeration typically requires less labor, because there’s no need for core removal/processing or top dressing.

Advantages of Toro TITAN^® Tines

Regardless of the aeration type, most of a tine’s wear occurs at the tip, where the most interaction with the turf occurs. All TITAN tines are made with a special heat-treating process that ensures proper hardness for long life and superior performance. Toro offers these solid tine options:

• TITAN Solid Round tines feature a 1/16″ flat tip for handling comfort during installation. Tines are manufactured with a durable alloy steel and heat-treated to extend their longevity.
• TITAN Cross tines feature a unique design that allows them to expose almost double the soil surface area to the environment, compared to a similarly sized Solid Round tine. The increased surface area allows for increased gas exchange with minimal disturbance to the turf surface.
• TITAN Slicing tines offer aggressive soil aeration for increased gas exchange and water infiltration while strictly limiting the risk of turf damage. This tine is also an excellent choice to promote root growth.
• TITAN Needle tines provide the smallest footprint of any TITAN tine while creating an environment for efficient gas exchange and water infiltration. This narrow tine is the ideal selection in turf requiring frequent aeration, especially during the warmer months.

For more information about selecting the right Toro TITAN tine for your aeration process, visit toro.com/cultivation.