No, it is not necessary, though it may increase germination rate. What is necessary is to expose the soil well so the seed can be in direct contact with it.

 

*Really* necessary, no, but it does help. Good germination rates are all about getting good seed-to-soil contact, right?

Consider that seed just thrown on the ground probably has 20% of it's surface in contact with soil; raked in a bit or garden weaseled and you have the seed buried, but air gaps and so on may leave 50-70% in contact; roll that in? 90-100% of the surface of the seed in contact.

If you use a slice seeder you can almost certainly skip rolling. For small areas you could even just walk on the raked in seed to press it down.

 

What @j4c11 said. Not necessary and I've never done it. Important thing is seed to soil contact and watering.

 

Agree with @ksturfguy, too. Watering well would sort out the air gaps after raking in pretty quickly.

 

Seed to soil contact.

 

great pics @g-man . You will see this sometimes when you seed with a spreader and you will get better germination where the tires from your spreader rolled. So clearly rolling helps, is it necessary though? Absolutely not, but if you already have a roller and it's not too much extra work then go for it! It's like a lot of things people do with renos or even their yearly maintenance programs, is it all necessary, no but does it help, yes.

Last year when I did my "reno" I kept it simple, 1 because I didn't want to go rent a bunch of equipment and 2, I wanted to see if I could still have success. In my 1k sqft area I sprayed Gly 3 times, let it die, scalped at the lowest setting and then went back over it a 2nd time and bagged the clippings. I then applied the seed and applied the fert and watered. Reno was a success in the end but very possible it would have been a success even quicker if I did, dethatch, slit seeded, rolled, etc etc.

 

I bought a roller last year because the year before I used my garden tractor as a quasi type roller by driving all over the lawn after slit seeding and the difference in germination mimicked the pictures you saw above.

I bought one from home depot. You can buy their used tools. I got it for a steal. However you can rent one for something like 10 bucks. Cheap insurance in my mind.

 

Just a PIA to rent something sometimes. My Local HD doesn't rent tools so it's a further trip.... HOWEVER... I can ride the ATV all over the place and I hadn't thought of that before. which is a happy medium... so glad I started this...

 

Get a little creative with it! I used my zero-turn lawn mower which has wide back tires and rolled over my yard for about 20 minutes. Just make sure the ground is a little damp!

 

I did enough laps with the 4 wheeler that in worst case scenario, only the tire tracks germinated, that I'd be ok....
Feels good for that extra security

 

I rolled in my seed for the first time last year and because of the results I will roll every time I do a seeding project. The results are day and night.

 

I rolled in my seed for the first time last year and because of the results I will roll every time I do a seeding project. The results are day and night.

Did you do anything else or just spread the seed and roll?

 

I rolled in my seed for the first time last year and because of the results I will roll every time I do a seeding project. The results are day and night.

Did you do anything else or just spread the seed and roll?

I did a light rake with my greens keeper 2 rake, put down my seed then another light rake and rolled it.

 

Seed to soil contact.

good one

 

For those doing side strip seeding, I used some cardboard from my Timemaster box and simply stepped all over it to get seed to soil contact and help smooth out the area

 

Imbedding the seed into the soil a bit also helps to prevent the seed getting washed away during rain or a watering.

 

Piggybacking on this question.. I just cut low, dethatched, leveled a bunch of spots with topsoil and am putting TTTF seed down today. I have a roller from Home Depot, but is it necessary to rake the seed before rolling?

 

Piggybacking on this question.. I just cut low, dethatched, leveled a bunch of spots with topsoil and am putting TTTF seed down today. I have a roller from Home Depot, but is it necessary to rake the seed before rolling?

I did. It seemed to work well.

 

My opinion is either rake or roll but not both. The spreader had a nice even pattern amd the roller presses it in nicely. If no roller the raking helps embed the seed. I've seen many seedlings come up over the years I'm straight lines from the times in a rake. I use the back of the rake and wig wag it as I go

 

I ended up using the back of the rake and did two passes perpendicular to each other and then rolled. The 3 Home Depot's closest to me has no peat moss so hopefully it's embedded enough.

 

YES!