So we’re here today with our new Lawn Air plugger. We’re here with Peanut.

We brought one of our employees tractors to use, because our bob cats were on another job. This is a nice little Massey Ferguson. It’s made by Secky [sp]. It’s a great little tractor and it’s the perfect sized tractor to be using for lawns like this is this size aerator. This is a 650-lb. aerator. This is the first time we’ve tried it.

Dad does his yard twice a year. Right now he’s got some bermuda that hasn’t come back green from the winter yet. It’s still cold, but Dad doesn’t care what it is as long as it’s green. So we’re gonna get him a new yard here fescue. And then we’ll come back and take a picture at about two and a half, three weeks when this comes up and you’ll be able to see how much difference where the holes are actually aerated of what’s gonna come up, because after we get through plugging, Peanut will put out the seed and the fertilizer. Then it’ll all blend in and it’ll melt out these what should be plugs that are gonna come out.

These are a new spoon that we’ve had designed. It’s a total new piece for us. Right now we’ve got the 36 and the 48 with the 60 and 72 to come. But these have the all independent wheels where you can kind of turn a little bit and not tear your ground. It simply doesn’t have any of the weight that you’re gonna have to add to the top or drain the water. Make sure it doesn’t bust. And it’s a one shot deal plugger

You shouldn’t have to go over it twice. Simply because of the penetration. Right now the ground is probably close to right. If anything, it’s a little bit wet. We’re probably gonna get a good three and a half or four inch plug. We’ll see what we get. Go ahead Peanut give it a try. We’ve set the stabilizers on it also. Just a little bit loose were you’ve got a little bit of play so if he varies from an exact straight line, that it’s gonna let it follow without tearing a hole.

So it looks like it’s going plenty deep.

It is a little bit wet. Peanut is getting four inch plus plugs out of this. It’s almost going all the way up to where the weight is and that’s about a full five inches to the weight and he’s getting about four and a half inch plugs. That’s about as long as I’ve seen.

The ground is just a little wetter than it would normally be when you want to plug and that was the water meter he slowed down to go over. Those spoons are good enough where if you do go over your asphalt water meter or something, you’re not gonna damage these hardened tempered spoons.

This particular implement, it’s not designed for a quick attach. It could be, but there’s some reasons it’s not. If you’re insisted on having it for a quick attach we can make one. Right there’s the water meter he’s trying to go slow over. And right there’s the other one. That has two water meters. One that’s for the irrigation that he doesn’t have to pay any sewage extra bill on and one for the house.
Even though you only have 30 inches from spoon to spoon he’s skipping the six inches in between the last row. So he’s getting the 36 inch coverage on every pass. And the only reason we have a 36 and we built it first is because when we were buying them from Ryan, which is Lawn Air, the 48 was just so expensive you really just couldn’t afford it. Dealer cost on that 36 right now, buying it through a distributor is 2,400 dollars plus. And that comes unassembled and plus frieght.

The four foot last time I priced it was well in the 3,000 dollar range and it’s just more than I’m willing as a home owner to invest since I don’t do it professionally. And these pluggers are more expensive than our drum pluggers, but you get a lot more for your money and it’s something that will last you a lifetime. They’re not in the 3,000 dollar range and 6,000 dollar range. You still get the exact same quality of plugger without the big price.

So we’re gonna follow it right behind it where you can see it in action. So he’s plugging a whole lot faster than he should be and let’s go back and look and see how it came out. He’s in third gear instead of first gear and it’s still leaving great plugs. If you were able to plug that fast on a commercial job, you sure would save a lot of time. Get your production up.

It’s still leaving a full size plug and there’s no reason to not be plugging fast if you can. So he’s plugging at probably six or seven miles an hour and it’s leaving great plugs. This yard’s a little softer than it should be. We had rain a couple nights ago, but it’s just with our timing and whether it’s what we have to do.

See he’s leaving that six inches in between his last row and his new row so that he gets the full 36 inches on every pass. And at that speed, he would get a lot plugged quick. It’s really gonna take a large tractor to be able to lift our five or six footer at the weight this is per foot. That’s over 200 pounds per foot.

You see there he’s able to make that turn without tearing the holes and still leaving his plugs. Where a drum aerator would really needed to be lifted up to make that turn.

The Ryan video said they could plug up to four miles an hour in the right conditions and this is a little bit wet. I believe we could easily plug in the six or seven miles per hour range.

For this size of yard it’s better to not have a really big heavy tractor on the lot.

OK so after we’ve done our testing here today we really like the results we’ve gotten. It is a little wet. We’re getting a really long plug which is okay it’s over four inches. We were able to see that we were able to run up to about seven miles per hour and still get the full plug without tearing, which would be way past any other plugger I know. Mainly because it just doesn’t have enough weight to keep that much penetrated and that much ground speed at the same time. It needs the weight to work slower to get it in the ground that far.

Some of the things we’ve done and we’ve been asked about this on tractor by net. The hitch is fully adjustable here and as you’ll see we put it on the top side of this instead of out front. This particular tractor here is almost a class two, in fact it probably is a class two compact. So it’s bigger than would need to use for a 36 inch plugger, but on a lot of the tractors the sub compacts and the class one compacts, they need this hitch to be bringing this heavy weight as close to the tractor as possible.

Even if you have a tractor that can pick it up with no problem. The closer this unit is to the tractor, the more turning you’re gonna be able to do without tearing the hole, because the further it gets back, the further the implement moves. So we’ve put it this way on purpose.

Now we’ve had some people say, “well I don’t buy any attachment that’s not a quick attach attachment”. That’s fine. We can make it a quick attach attachment if that’s what you want, but you’re gonna lose some of the performance as you bring this back further on the ability to turn without tearing your hole. You’re gonna be able to turn as much as possible, but the further it gets back, the less you’re gonna get of that.

We like the design we’ve come up with. It’s the first time we’ve used it. We’re really happy that we’re getting these nice big, long plugs and that’s not even close to one of the longest ones. Still got the grass and all on the top of it. You can see where the roots are pulling apart right there. There’s nowhere to go but up for this spring. As soon as Peanut gets through putting out the lime and the fertilizer.

There’s a nice sized plug. Some of them are even an inch longer than that, but once it pushes through those spoons that we had made here in America, that it was worth the effort to come up with everything that we’ve done to make it here in America. Not get our wheels casted off shore and to get our tines here in America. Those tines with the tinsel strint they have. Even if you’re going over your driveway or asphalt or something, it’s not a good thing to do. It’s probably gonna be harder on your asphalt than it is on the tine, but they will stand it without breaking and so forth.

We’re really happy with all the testing we did on that tine. We went through a lot of trouble for almost a year to get the tine that we wanted with the manufacturers we were working with. So we like our final product. We will be coming up with the five and the six foot later, because it just gets into such a weight issue on shipping. Everything will be available soon. Just give us a call or an email and we’ll be happy to help you fit the right plugger for your tractor.