An Urban's Rural View

Keeping Score in the Cornfields vs. Lawns Blame Game

Urban C Lehner
By  Urban C Lehner , Editor Emeritus
Connect with Urban:
@urbanize

Cornfield runoff may deaden more of the Gulf of Mexico but lawns emit more carbon dioxide.

Researchers from Elizabethtown College measured soil temperature, soil moisture and CO2 emissions in cornfields and lawns in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Their findings, published in the Soil Science Society of America Journal, were summarized in an article in E—The Environmental Magazine (http://tiny.cc/… ). 

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"Both carbon dioxide releases and soil temperature were higher in the residential lawns," E reported. "Those higher temperatures were directly associated with carbon dioxide efflux." The higher the temperature, the greater the biological activity, respiration and CO2 releases.

It's long been known that cities' dark roofs and roads caused heat islands but the new findings raise the possibility that even residential development can cause increases in soil temperature.

The Elizabethtown researchers want next to study carbon sequestration. When Congress rejected cap-and-trade a few years ago farmers lost their chance to be paid for no-tilling, but they could still win the next blame game if it turns out that no-till agriculture stores more carbon than leaving grass clippings on lawns.

The E article noted that NASA has been using satellite imagery to study the impact of lawns on water supplies and carbon emissions. One NASA finding: There are three times more acres of lawns in the country than there are acres of irrigated corn, making lawns America's largest irrigated crop.

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Comments

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Bonnie Dukowitz
5/7/2013 | 10:17 AM CDT
Well stated, Jay.
Jay Mcginnis
5/6/2013 | 6:35 AM CDT
While this is all true playing the "blame game" doesn't help address our own problems, there are many problems with agriculture and they need to be addressed. Part of a local problem in the past here has been older farmers insisting that they sell their farms to developers as their retirement. Many of those old farmers are now gone and we are stuck with the messes of over building and lost farmland. The land is a resource, not a commodity and the head of the Audobon Association was quoted as saying that even the worse run chemical farm is better then a subdivision. Farmers that sell their land for housing are doing huge harm to the future generations for the few years of their "retirement".
Urban Lehner
5/5/2013 | 1:16 PM CDT
Thanks, Bonnie. I said "may deaden" and you say "may not be entirely accurate" so we're both "may-ing" this. I'd certainly agree with you that there's a big urban runoff problem. Both city and country need to improve their practices and minimize runoff.
Bonnie Dukowitz
5/4/2013 | 6:49 AM CDT
Good topic! Your first sentence Urban may not be entirely accurate. In the "Asphalt jungles", most storm drains are open drain inlets from areas which are 60%-70% are impervious. The lawn run-off surrounding these areas, which never have a mud puddle, take this unfiltered solution directly to the Gulf. I am not denying the fact all of us need to improve our practices, however, if we in agriculture were as callous in our actions as our city friends, the entire nation would be in bigger trouble. There is some interesting research from Discovery Farms Wisconsin and or Discovery Farms Minnesota on the web.