HELPFUL HINTS HELPFUL HINTS
HELPFUL HINTS
FROM THE LAWN INSTITUTE FROM THE LAWN INSTITUTE
FROM THE LAWN INSTITUTE LAWN LIFE
Tere is another lawn “life” that exists right beneath your feet. Tis life just happens to be going on quietly underground while families and kids enjoy all that natural grass lawns have to offer on the surface.
Yes, there is a living, thriving, and breathing abundance of life that lawns support just beneath the surface. From plant and soil processes to arthropods and micro-organisms, natural grass lawns sustain a wide range of life in urban and suburban neighborhoods all over the world.
We all know the process of plants capturing atmospheric carbon dioxide and converting it into fresh oxygen, but the benefits of carbon capture by lawns do not stop there. As carbon is deposited into the soil, it contributes to soil organic carbon, and can have a profound influence on ecosystem sustainability, soil fertility, and soil structure. Urban and suburban cities in many areas of the world are often developed on former agricultural land. As neighborhoods and communities are developed, hundreds of years of organic carbon deposited by plants are stripped off during construction practices so that homes and roads can be built onto the underlying mineral subsoils. Planting natural grass lawns, trees, shrubs, and other plants is the most effective way to return these disturbed soils into a more native state. Te carbon deposited by these plants improves soil structure and aggregation, creates pore space for water and oxygen, and improves runoff capture. But did you also know that it serves as a habitat for a thriving system of soil arthropods and micro-organisms?
Managed lawns can host as many as 52 different arthropod families, with over half of them representing beneficial insects such as predators and parasitoids. Researchers in the United States found over 330,000 arthropods in 20 home lawns within just a three-month sampling
For more information on lawn care and helpful “How to” tips, visit The Lawn Institute at:
www.TheLawnInstitute.org.
TPI Turf News July/August 2021 9
period. Researchers in Australia found that grasses had the greatest diversity of both ants and beetles on five of their six sampling dates and had the greatest diversity at the taxonomic level order on half of their sampling dates. Tey also found 21 orders of arthropods in just four lawns. Researchers in Canada have found that lawn ecosystems made up of perennial grass species, even when intensively managed, support a diverse fauna of arthropods including herbivores, natural enemies, and decomposers. In just one study, researchers found a diverse population of 17 species, ten genera, and seven tribes present in lawns. It also showed that as lawns mature, there are up to six times the number of natural enemies when compared to new lawns.
In addition to soil arthropods, natural grass lawns support a diverse soil microbiome that is made up of a complex network of micro-organisms including bacteria, fungi, and single- celled organisms called archaea. Tese micro-organisms are vital to soil health and sustainability and are supported by the high carbon sequestration rates of the grass they flourish under. Recent research has shown that natural grass lawns enhance soil microbial diversity when compared to bare soil and help regulate microbial community composition.
Be sure to check out the all new TLI website at www.
TeLawnInstitute.org to learn more about the many environmental benefits of urban and suburban lawns!
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