Aerating with offset disc harrows

[Alpocat]

Hello everyone,
Hopefully, this won't sound too dumb, but I'll go ahead and ask. Can you aerate your lawn with a 4' - 4-1/2 ft adjustable disc harrow? I think I've found a used 3 pt aerator at a reasonable price (if he'll sell it), but I could do double duty if I could do a good job with a disc harrow. I don't have the disc harrow yet, but I definitely will buy one soon. If I don't have to spend the money on an aerator, then I could spend more for a set of discs.

[sweettractors]

You could, if you can adjust the disc gang angles to run straight. It is going to be a little more aggressive than a aerator and leave the yard a little rougher. Ken Sweet

[MMagis]

I find that when I run straight disks they don't dig into sod at all. I can't imagine getting any deeper than 1/2 at the very best. In my mind, it wouldn't work well, if at all. That's with my soil/shale yard. Maybe it would work with softer soil.

[sweettractors]

You don't need to go very deep. You are just disturbing the root zone of the grass, so it will invigorate itself and shoot more roots. If you have a lot of shale in the soil, I don't know if a aerator will penetrate to 3-4 inches?? Ken Sweet

[JoeinTX]

Not dumb at all, Alpo.

As Sweet says, it can be used for that although I would try a little more moderate gang adjustment as opposed to keeping them perfectly strait.

We do something similar for Johnson Grass fields where the roots need a little stimulation to spur growth and a discing at moderate sweep does that perfectly as well as loosening up topsoil just a bit to promote some moisture penetration. It's not "true" aeration in today's sense but it's not a bad practice if all you have on hand is a disc.......

[Ford850]

I sure wouldn't use a disc on my lawn. A pasture, probably, but not a lawn. Not unless it was already in very bad shape and this was a last effort before having to really disc it all up and reseed. It seems like it would create a rough surface by rolling the sod off in ribbons.
Maybe your soil and sod can handle it better than mine though. If you plan to buy a disc soon anyway, then maybe you should buy it now and try a small area. Worse thing that can happen is you find it won't work and you can buy the aerator you found.

[radman1]

I sure wouldn't use a disc on my lawn. A pasture, probably, but not a lawn. Not unless it was already in very bad shape and this was a last effort before having to really disc it all up and reseed. It seems like it would create a rough surface by rolling the sod off in ribbons.
Maybe your soil and sod can handle it better than mine though. If you plan to buy a disc soon anyway, then maybe you should buy it now and try a small area. Worse thing that can happen is you find it won't work and you can buy the aerator you found.

I am with you. Using a disc seems risky and probably little benefit.

[Luremaker]

Hello everyone,
Hopefully, this won't sound too dumb, but I'll go ahead and ask. Can you aerate your lawn with a 4' - 4-1/2 ft adjustable disc harrow? I think I've found a used 3 pt aerator at a reasonable price (if he'll sell it), but I could do double duty if I could do a good job with a disc harrow. I don't have the disc harrow yet, but I definitely will buy one soon. If I don't have to spend the money on an aerator, then I could spend more for a set of discs.

Not sure if you already have a tiller. If you do you may want to read this article from Mother Earth News about using a tiller to aerate your pasture. I started doing this a few years back and it works great. It leaves slices in the sod which disappear in a few weeks.



Pasture Renovation

[Bear Foot Farm]

It seems like it would create a rough surface by rolling the sod off in ribbons

Thats exactly what will happen.
I do it in my pastures, but I'd never do it in the yard
An Aerator basically just punches holes, where the disc plows

[Alpocat]

Thanks guys! I think I'll hold off on using the discs.