Going Green: Organic Lawn Care

This is a tough topic to tackle in a 90 second television news story, so it's nice to have this blog to get deeper into the topic. The Environmental Protection Agency says 78 million U.S. homes use lawn and garden pesticides. Also, suburban lawns and gardens receive more pesticides per acre than agriculture fields. Add in the high level of emissions given off by lawn care equipment like mowers and weed trimmers and lawn care is pretty hard on the environment.

But there are ways you can cut back or eliminate chemical use if you are willing to lower your standards a bit or are willing to work a little harder at lawn care. Here's today's video Turf Tip:

Steve also talked about organic fertilizers; which I didn't get a chance to include in my WDAZ News @ 5 segment. I wasn't sure if organic fertilizer meant spreading manure on your yard (which I'm sure would not go over well in my neighborhood!). Here's his answer:

I'm really facinated by the story of corn gluten; an organic herbicide that was discovered pretty much by accident by an Iowa State University researcher. Here's a link to the ISU webpage that documents the discovery and the research involving corn gluten.

And here are a number of links to websites that advocate organic lawn care and provide tips:

Natural Lawn Care

Beyond Pesticides Group

Environmental Protection Agency Lawn and Garden Page

Natural Resources Conservation Service


So will I try to eliminate pesticide use as part of my lawn care system? There's some pretty scary information out there about these chemicals being carcinogens and sticking around and being found in trace amounts inside of homes. I am pretty vigilant about following label directions and keeping the kids and the dog off the lawn for a day after I spray. I also follow the recommendations found in this University of Wisconsin Extension pamphlet on using nitrogen fertilizers. A number of websites also warn against the use of weed and feed products that combine both herbicide and fertilizers. While I didn't use such a product this year, I have in the past. They make a good point that it's overkill to do both at the same time. I also found advice to spot spray for weeds instead of covering your whole lawn with a hose-sprayer application since you likely don't have weeds on every inch of your lawn. Of course with a pre-emergent in the spring, you can't see the weeds yet, so you want to get it down everywhere.

So while I'm not quite ready to give up chemical and fertilizer use entirely, researching this topic has piqued my curiosity and I may try testing some of these methods like using corn gluten as a pre-emergent herbicide. If there's not too much of a drop-off in results and it's not cost-prohibitive, I'm willing to do my part to go green while trying to achieve a green lawn.

What do you think? Are you concerned about pesticide use in lawns? Leave a comment below.