The unique complementary roles of ion acoustic damping and zonal-flow (ZF) shearing in the saturation of ion temperature gradient modes (ITG) has been experimentally demonstrated using stabilizing and destabilizing feedback techniques. This was done in the context of experimental studies of ZF scalings over a wide parameter range. Furthermore, the scaling of ZF amplitude with that of ITG via increasing ITG drive through increasing ion temperature gradient via rf heating reveals an expected monotonic behavior.