Hacker News Reader

Comment by gmoes | Hacker News Reader

Good point, compared to 40 million for lawns. Maybe proportional to usefulness. ;)

And water is a huge issue too. The native plants thrive in wet and dry conditions without attention.

So there is an order of magnitude difference, but the other side of that is with farmland, pesticides are applied by professionals, trying to minimize cost. With yards, pesticides are applied (most often) by rank amateurs, who often know nearly nothing about proper application.

Calling farmers professionals as it relates to the conscious application of dangerous pesticides is a serious stretch. We're approving new pesticides at an unreal rate. These guys have no idea how this stuff works or its impact on the greater environment. They need to use it because plants and insects are becoming resistant to the old stuff and farms are in the business to make money. Externalities be damned.

Suburban lawn care has been going on for decades, using largely the same approach it always has. Mainly fertilizers applied once or twice a year if you bother to care. Broadleaf weed killers, maybe grub killer. The primary way to getting a nice lawn, though, is to overseed so often you choke out weeds. On the other side of the coin, agriculture is engaging in a broad spectrum application of herbacides, pesticides, etc with new formulas coming all the time. At an insane scale.

There is no comparison to yards. It's agriculture.

Where did that come from? Farmers are regulated, trained, and have oversight on chemical application. Most applications are done by farm service corporations that meticulously adhere to application schedules.

Whereas urban folks spray 10-100X the concentrations on a single dandelion that a farmer would be penalized for.

While I don't disagree with what you're saying, I'd like to point out that with suburban lawn maintenance, it wouldn't surprise me to see over-application of fertilizer and pesticide on the order of 10x actually needed.

I would expect that the harm to the environment per unit of area is greater for lawns than farmland. I'll have to look for studies that research this.

Farmers have strict regulation on application, and face penalties to misapply. While urban lawns have no regulation and no oversight. Its commonly believed in rural areas that urban pollution/runoff far outstrips what farms contribute

I'm curious about that definition of lawn, does it only apply to residence property or commercial spaces, athletic pitches, &c?

Most commercial buildings have extensive landscaping but try to limit huge patches of green grass as it's hard and expensive to maintain - unless they're using it as a signal for wealth and opulence (like a fancy hotel) or labour is really cheap.

If you've ever had a chance to run/play on modern artificial turf it's amazing. I think most facilities would love to switch to it but it's super expensive.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com