There seems to be a lot of concern over the size of the hole that an upright weeding tool makes when it pulls the weed. Without overstating the obvious, when an object is removed from the ground a hole is created, the larger the object the larger the hole. We can't do much about that. A Dandelion's taproot can be several inches long if left unattended. It is quite difficult and very unlikely that you will ever remove all of the taproot by pulling a taproot up with mechanical