ranman99
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rule of thumb,,,hotter it gets ,,the higher you want to mow

The Helpful Gardener
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RM is spot on; my number one tip for organic lawns is mow high. The reasons are many and various...

First of all as noted up thread, taller grass means longer roots. The difference between 2" grass and 4" gras is not double the roots though, it is six times as much! Imagine the difference that will make for a lawn.

More shade means more soil moisture, and more moisture means better grass. It also means better penetration, so less surface flow and more retention onsite. MOre shade means heat loving weeds don't get as much heat either. Giddyup.

The increased cut means more leaf, and more leaf means more chlorophyll, and that means more energy for the plant. Fertilizers don't feed plants, photosynthesis feeds plants (ferts just help with photosynthesis. Chemical companies want you to cut at two inches so you need their nasty weed chems; grass wants to be three feet tall. I compromise at four inches and the grass couldn't be happier (it is now doubling its photosynthetic output, making it very sturdy). It now outcompetes most weeds, even during the hot season weeds like and grass hates. NICE!

When we are looking at doing just ONE thing to make organic lawns viable and self sufficient, this is my best tip. Taller grass is happier grass...

HG

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swickstrum
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Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 11:41 am
Location: Texas

The Helpful Gardener wrote:RM is spot on; my number one tip for organic lawns is mow high. The reasons are many and various...

First of all as noted up thread, taller grass means longer roots. The difference between 2" grass and 4" gras is not double the roots though, it is six times as much! Imagine the difference that will make for a lawn.

More shade means more soil moisture, and more moisture means better grass. It also means better penetration, so less surface flow and more retention onsite. MOre shade means heat loving weeds don't get as much heat either. Giddyup.

The increased cut means more leaf, and more leaf means more chlorophyll, and that means more energy for the plant. Fertilizers don't feed plants, photosynthesis feeds plants (ferts just help with photosynthesis. Chemical companies want you to cut at two inches so you need their nasty weed chems; grass wants to be three feet tall. I compromise at four inches and the grass couldn't be happier (it is now doubling its photosynthetic output, making it very sturdy). It now outcompetes most weeds, even during the hot season weeds like and grass hates. NICE!

When we are looking at doing just ONE thing to make organic lawns viable and self sufficient, this is my best tip. Taller grass is happier grass...

HG
I agree with this but my lawn is St. Augustine (I live in Texas) and it looks really bad if you let it get four inches tall. I can do about two, maybe three, but four is really pushing it. Thankfully, St. Augustine is really hearty and can take a lot of heat & drought before it dies.

My question is this, is there a good natural weed neutralizer I can use to help keep the weeds that flourish in cooler temperatures from taking over? The St. Augustine normally pushes the weeds out by mid-summer, but in spring the weeds sneak in and just look horrible. I'd like to keep them at bay if possible next spring.

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tomf
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Location: Oregon

I have been reading what others here are doing but I have a few issues to deal with. One is I have to many acres of lawn to pull weeds by hand or even use some of the same methods others use. What I do is to mow, thatch and aerate, reseed, and over seed. I have some moss issues in some areas, close to the house I try to control it, but in some areas I just say "it is green, let it be".
Another is all the wild life eats my grass, I have deer, rabbits, and elk come by, the deer will be eating 20 feet from me sometimes. Birds are going after bugs in the lawns. I also do not want chemicals getting into the water table. So organic is my only way, my lawn is a bit of a mix with some weeds but weeds are natural. I am actually surprised at who well the grass is doing. Not all places are doing as well as others although. If I could get 55 gallon barrels of organic tea that would be good, but there is no way I can make enough o do any good. Comments, ideas, and help are most welcome.

Dillbert
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....the odd thoughts . . . .

somewhere, and I'd have to research it - there's information / book / whatever that maintains the types of "weeds" that thrive reflect "soil conditions"

the only one I can cite off-hand is moss - likes acid conditions.
I got moss. applied ground limestone 5x years in a row with little effect - then decided to apply at 3x the "normal" rate - well, that has whacked back the moss noticeably.....

>>I have to many acres . . .
there are people who think the entire world should dump chemical fertilizers and go 100% organic 100% of everywhere on the planet.

as you have noticed, organic approaches tend to be a lot more labor / time intensive. going whole planet 100% organic would certainly "work" - if you accept about 50-75% of the human population dying of starvation.

so, here we sit quietly in our little chem free kitchen gardens, pondering . . .

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Gary350
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Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

My idea of Organic Lawn Care is, do absolutely nothing. Let grass, plantain, clover, dandelions, and all other things grow. Let moles dig tunnels. Let birds eat what every they want. Let honey bees come to all the flowers. In the 1800s people cut grass around the house to keep snakes away from the house that has evolved into a money making business for many people. I mow my grass high and mow around the clover so the bees continue to come. When clover turns brown I cut it down then it grows back and bees return. I never fertilize I do not want to mow grass more often.

Image

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rainbowgardener
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Beautiful lawn photo, Gary!

That's my take on lawns also. I think spring lawns are just beautiful with yellow dandelions and purple violets:

Image

I haven't seen it around here, but in Cincinnati, spring beauty was a common wildflower that would grow in big colonies in people's lawns.

Image

So pretty! You can't have that in a treated and fertilized lawn

My lawn is more clover and weeds than grass, but kept mowed evenly, it looks just as green as everyone elses.

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rainbowgardener
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Dillbert wrote:.

as you have noticed, organic approaches tend to be a lot more labor / time intensive. going whole planet 100% organic would certainly "work" - if you accept about 50-75% of the human population dying of starvation.

so, here we sit quietly in our little chem free kitchen gardens, pondering . . .
RE feeding the world:

Here's one more:

UN Report Says Small Scale Organic Farming Only Way to Feed the World
https://www.technologywater.com/post/699 ... rming-only

" the United Nations is once against sounding the alarm about the urgent need to return to (and develop) a more sustainable, natural and organic system. ... essentially said organic and small-scale farming is the answer for “feeding the world,” not GMOs and monocultures. ..Diversity of farms, reducing the use of fertilizer and other changes are desperately needed according to the report"

There is more and more information coming out that says that the ONLY way we are going to be able to feed our population is through organic methods.
There are actually myriad studies from around the world showing that organic farms can produce about as much, and in some settings much more, than conventional farms. Where there is a yield gap, it tends to be widest in wealthy nations, where farmers use copious amounts of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides in a perennial attempt to maximize yields. It is true that farmers converting to organic production often encounter lower yields in the first few years, as the soil and surrounding biodiversity recover from years of assault with chemicals. And it may take several seasons for farmers to refine the new approach.

More importantly, in the world's poorer nations where most of the world's hungry live, the yield gaps completely disappear. University of Essex researchers Jules Pretty and Rachel Hine looked at over 200 agricultural projects in the developing world that converted to organic and ecological approaches, and found that for all the projects-involving 9 million farms on nearly 30 million hectares-yields increased an average of 93 percent. A seven-year study from Maikaal District in central India involving 1,000 farmers cultivating 3,200 hectares found that average yields for cotton, wheat, chili, and soy were as much as 20 percent higher on the organic farms than on nearby conventionally managed ones. Farmers and agricultural scientists attributed the higher yields in this dry region to the emphasis on cover crops, compost, manure, and other practices that increased organic matter (which helps retain water) in the soils.

organic farming is a sophisticated combination of old wisdom and modern ecological innovations that help harness the yield-boosting effects of nutrient cycles, beneficial insects, and crop synergies. It's heavily dependent on technology-just not the technology that comes out of a chemical plant.
from https://www.worldwatch.org/node/4060 World Watch Institute. The Worldwatch Institute is a globally focused environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C. Worldwatch was named as one of the top ten sustainable development research organizations by Globescan Survey of Sustainability Experts.

Last August, there was a good deal of publicity about the fact that the United Nations released a report saying Only Small Farmers and Agroecology Can Feed the World
Modern industrial agricultural methods can no longer feed the world, due to the impacts of overlapping environmental and ecological crises linked to land, water and resource availability.

The stark warning comes from the new United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Prof Hilal Elver, in her first public speech since being appointed in June.

“Food policies which do not address the root causes of world hunger would be bound to fail”, she told a packed audience in Amsterdam.The 2009 global food crisis signalled the need for a turning point in the global food system”, she said at the event hosted by the Transnational Institute (TNI), a leading international think tank.

“Modern agriculture, which began in the 1950s, is more resource intensive, very fossil fuel dependent, using fertilisers, and based on massive production. This policy has to change.

“We are already facing a range of challenges. Resource scarcity, increased population, decreasing land availability and accessibility, emerging water scarcity, and soil degradation require us to re-think how best to use our resources for future generations.
that is from https://permaculturenews.org/2014/09/26/ ... eed-world/ but that was just the first place I could find it. The UN report was publicized in all kinds of mainstream media.

Here's a couple threads where I have written more on the issue of productivity by organic vs petrochemical methods:



https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... ld+organic

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... 10&t=59395

In fact, our current industrial agriculture methods of farming square mile monocultures with huge gasoline-fueled machinery, with ever increasing amounts of herbicidal and insecticidal poisons (which breed resistant super weeds and super bugs) and petroleum derived fertilizers is simply not sustainable. In the long run, the only way to feed the population will be through smaller scale, more sustainable methods. It would help though if we could gain control over runaway population growth. Feeding nine billion people is going to be difficult regardless of methods.

Oh and re labor intensive -- digital technologies and robots will be taking over more and more jobs (I just saw an article saying self-driving cars and trucks are already on the road. Uber is developing a whole fleet of self driving cars so they won't have to pay drivers and truck drivers will be put out of work by self driving trucks. That is only one of myriads of examples) So I'm not sure it is a bad thing if more workers get employed in agriculture.



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