
There is no doubt that having a lawn care company take care of your lawn improves not only your home’s value, it also benefits the environment. One of these benefits is keeping the air that enters our lungs, homes, and lives clean. A healthy lawn will clean the air in 2 main ways.
The first method that healthy lawns use to clean the air is by creating a dense root system. A properly fertilized lawn will create a strong root system and eventually a dense canopy of lawn. This system of roots and leaves holds on to the soil in which it is growing, thus keeping it from drying up and blowing into the air. If you have ever been near a crop field during a harvest period, you know that when soil is bare and dry it can enter the air and become quite a nuisance!
The second method is through photosynthesis and respiration. Without taking you back to high school biology, this is the process where Carbon Dioxide (bad) is taken out of the air and used as energy in the plant. In exchange your lawn will produce oxygen. This process happens in most plants. Turfgrass may have an advantage over trees, shrubs, and perennials because it has a longer growing season.
It wouldn’t be right if we didn’t mention the idea of lawn mowing. Mowing is one of the most important practices, however most mowers are run on fossil fuels. These fuels release carbon dioxide when they are running. Some research has been done to estimate the balance involved with turf and carbon sequestration. It was seen that a properly maintained lawn will take more of that carbon out of the air and store it in the soil, as compared to an unfertilized lawn. In a perfect world, we would be able to grow and maintain a lawn with zero emissions into the environment. Technology and new advancements towards sustainability will lead lawn care down that avenue in the near future.
Author: Andrew Muntz received his Master’s of Science in Turfgrass science and his Bachelors of Science in Landscape Horticulture at The Ohio State University, Columbus OH.