Services

The Earthquake/Shockwave Rotary Decompactor is a popular alternative to the Verti-Drain. The Earthquake/Shockwave works by lateral movement of the soil to depths of 38 cm maximum with virtually zero surface disturbance. The Earthquake/Shockwave can complete 1-2 hectares of turf per day depending on model.

Soil is a living growing medium and in a natural healthy environment, it is teeming with life. Treating it in an unnatural way however, will soon upset the finely tuned equilibrium and may reduce the ability of the soil to maintain and sustain the natural defence mechanisms, such as micro-organisms and natural bacteria so essential to healthy plant growth. Soil particles are either mineral or organic with pore spaces in between. Air and water of varying proportions, at any one time, occupy the pore space.  In average natural soils the ratio of soil particles to pore space would be around 45% mineral matter, 5% organic matter and 50% pore space = 50:50.  The balance between air and water in the pore space would also be 50:50.  In reality this varies considerably depending on such things as rainfall or irrigation and evapo-transpiration.  Pore space and the rapid movement of air and water in the soil is absolutely essential and fundamental for the uptake of nutrients by grass roots as well as also allowing root penetration and good free draining soil. Pore spaces act as the reservoirs for water and facilitate the transportation system for all good life-giving things in the soil, to grass plants.

The modern trend towards all-year play, together with, a lack of regular maintenance to deal with aeration and compaction problems on sports turf surfaces, is one of the prime causes of poor localised drainage.

If you apply compression to the surface of turf in the form of thousands of human feet, and heavy maintenance machinery day in, day out, all year, every year, something happens to the soil beneath. It becomes crushed and compacted, forcing out the pore spaces as the soil particles become packed closely together (fine sand between course sand, silt between finer sand etc, destroying the structure and indeed, the infrastructure of the soil.  Compaction is progressive, beginning at the surface and gradually increases deeper and deeper into the soil profile.  Once the air occupying the pore spaces is less than 10 – 15% you have got real problems of poor soil aeration.  No pore space means the unavailability of water and nutrients as well as lack of soil micro-organisms - all of which are absolutely necessary for root growth and plant life. It is vitally important to prevent the soil air from becoming depleted or stale by regular aeration to facilitate a rapid interchange between soil air and atmospheric air.

What are the benefits of aeration/decompaction?

• Enables the absorption and percolation of water from the surface to the drainage system, preventing run-off and surface water lying inundulations
• Facilitates quick drying of turf to extend playing time
• Vastly improves root and shoot development and encourages deep rooting to increase drought resistance
• Increases and maintains ‘pore space’ enabling the uptake of water and nutrients and air movement in the soil
• Improves and maintains good soil structure
• Increases capillary action of moisture in dry weather
• Improves and maintains bacterial action – preventing thatch build-up and so reducing conditions  highly favourable to fusarium, fairy rings etc.
• Eliminates black layer
• Eliminates the need for wetting agents
• Vastly improves uptake and utilisation of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and trace elements enabling significant reductions in applications of these elements per season
• Maintains higher soil temperature and longer growing season
• Improves and maintains sward density giving a better playing surface and preventing the invasion of weeds and moss etc.
• Prevents algae and surface slime
• Improves the durability of the sward and recovery from surface damage
• Reduces the need for expensive wasteful overseeding by maintaining a dense population of original sown species
• Prevention of Anthracnose which is particularly favoured by compaction