Fun Fact: Grass lawns improve air quality by trapping airborne dust particles and other pollutants.
Fun Fact: Grass absorbs and disperses the sun’s rays, preventing the ground underneath from absorbing and storing the heat. Lawns reduce the need to use air conditioning on warmer days and save you money on use of electricity.
Fun Fact: Grasses have evolved to grow at their base in order to avoid damage to their growing points and to regrow quickly after cutting or grazing.
Fun Fact: A 2,500 square foot lawn can produce enough oxygen for four people.
Fun Fact: 1 tablespoon of soil has seven to ten billion organisms in it, which can be more than the amount of people on the planet.
Fun Fact: A quarter of all known species on Earth call soil their home and 95% of the food we consume comes from the soil.
Fun Fact: Soil mismanagement has contributed to soil losing between 50-70% of their original carbon stock, much of which has been released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
Fun Fact: It takes a minimum of 500 years to develop 1 inch of soil.
Fun Fact: 28 to 40 billion tons of soil is being lost to erosion every year, worldwide. This significantly reduces crop yields and the soil’s ability to store and cycle carbon, nutrients, and water.
Fun Fact: Microorganisms, such as springtails, tardigrades, and nematodes, are essential to the health of the soil.
Fun Fact: Soil microorganisms are used in nearly all antibiotics.
Fun Fact: Soils suitable for agriculture make up only about 7.5% of the Earth’s surface.
Fun Fact: Soils sequester more carbon than found in all the plant matter above ground plus all the atmospheric carbon (40 billion tons).
Fun Fact: Stopping the use of RoundUp will increase the carbon captured by a third during the growing season by fungal mycorrhizae.
Fun Fact: To control weeds, mix a gallon of white vinegar, a cup of salt, and a tablespoon of dish soap. Put in a squirt bottle and cover leaf surfaces of unwanted vegetation.
Fun Fact: Some of our soil is actually stardust from the remains of stars that fell to Earth.
Fun Fact: There are about 70 million pounds of fertilizer and 80 million pounds of pesticides applied to our lawns every year in the U.S.
Fun Fact: The difference between soil and dirt is that soil is a living ecosystem, while dirt is what’s under your fingernails.
Fun Fact: Free-living nematodes in the soil eat bacteria and the mycorrhizal roots of fungi.
Fun Fact: Nematodes decompose organic matter making minerals and nutrients accessible for plants.
Fun Fact: Nematodes are believed to be the oldest living multicellular animals on Earth.
Fun Fact: Your lawn is green because chlorophyll absorbs red and blue light; it reflects green light.
Fun Fact: There are over 10,000 types of grass in the world, including polar regions. 1,400 of them are in the U.S.
Fun Fact: Giant bamboo and palm trees are the largest varieties of grass.
Fun Fact: 20% of the world’s vegetation is made up of grasses.
Fun Fact: There is a species of seagrass in the Mediterranean Sea that dates back to 200,000 years ago, making it one of the oldest living organisms ever discovered.
Fun Fact: Soil is the unconsolidated mineral and organic material that serves as a natural medium for the growth of plants, fungi, and bacterium.
Fun Fact: A third of our global soils are now classified as degraded, and soil is a non-renewable resource (very slow, like 500 years for one inch of soil).
Fun Fact: Soil often has 6 layers: humus, topsoil, eluviation layer, subsoil, regolith, and bedrock.
Fun Fact: Grass-covered lawns help prevent erosion by keeping soil in place with their root systems.
Fun Fact: Grass roofs can reduce urban heat island effects and improve stormwater management.
Fun Fact: “We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.” – Leonardo da Vinci. Most soil microbes still haven’t been discovered.
Fun Fact: Changes in day length triggers the grass shoot to go to flower, the plant growth shifts from lengthening to thickening. Grasses in Massachusetts enter the reproductive stage before June 21.
