As the UN Climate accord act is about to be signed, I started thinking about all of the different ways that human beings in the political and leadership roles on the planet are little more than a blockage in the drain pipe of life. I look at what the arguments are about, the back and forth banter between political groups, the un-deniability that humans are consuming more than generating, and can’t get my head around why the state of our communities, cities, states, countries, and planet aren’t the first and foremost concern of all leaders. If the election cycle this year has told us one thing it’s that the people no longer trust the party line. To me, this is a wonderful thing, as everyone begins to wake up, look around, and sees that the Emperor has no clothes; we can all make the changes the world needs individually. As Big Dan said, “follow the money boys!”

So let’s look at a few things in a different manner that will allow the “think globally-act locally” mentality to sink in. There are times where I think that all of us who have taken on the Lawncology® mentality can forget what impacts we are having on the world around us. Last year, Greene County Fertilizer Company products were applied to over 50,000 acres. This includes crops, seeding, existing turf, trees, etc. In order to attain that, only 286 tons of nitrogen was used in our production to achieve stellar results. These 286 tons would be the equivalent of on 96 tons of anhydrous ammonia which in the Midwest would cover about 800 acres of corn. If translated to Urea and applied to turf would cover 2,860 acres one time or 572 acres in a 5 step program.

Let these numbers sink in because here’s where it gets interesting. In order to sustain a large lawn care company hundreds to thousands of tons of fertilizer material is used. The analysis of the material will change throughout the season, but the total amount of N going down will not. So let’s take a look at Johnny’s Lawncare of Cucamonga as a fictional example. Johnny’s has done really well in their fictional environment. They have 5,000 clients with an average of 6,000 square feet of lawn per household. Johnny’s is treating 690 acres per round 8 times a year in this absolutely stunning made up environment. Johnny’s likes to keep things very green and growing fast because they cut grass too, so they apply 6 lbs of N per M annually. This equates to 182,160 lbs of nitrogen over the year. Depending on how that is applied, it could be:

1. 200 tons of Urea
2. 400 tons of Ammonium Sulfate
3. 850 tons of 10-10-10

Take your pick, Johnny’s just buys what the distributor says is the best value. Here comes the environmental piece that is frequently overlooked in all areas of lawn care including organic methods; transportation and production costs related to energy. In order to just produce the nitrogen needed to supply Johnny’s, 7,180,000 cubic feet of natural gas was burned. This equals 24,768 gallons in diesel fuel equivalents. If this was produced in the USA, it would have to be transported from one of the 6 production facilities and would average 1000 miles to get to Johnny’s. This would require 9,000 miles of highway travel for a semi hauling urea, 18,000 for a semi hauling Ammonium Sulfate, and 40,000 miles for 10-10-10. The Urea movement alone added 1285 gallons of diesel or another 100,000 cubic feet of natural gas equivalents.

So, before Johnny’s has even taken the time to move and spread this stuff, he has already consumed 26,058 gallons of diesel or (depending on what’s easier to comprehend for you) 7,280,000 cubic feet of natural gas. I’m sure that many of you can do the math on the cost of all of that, let alone the atmospheric and air quality cost of burning that much fossil fuel. Remember, we are talking about one guy… this isn’t industry wide. There are thousands of companies like this in the US. Speaking from a carbon footprint side of things, lawn care sucks at being responsible. If you really want to get things into perspective, all of that fuel is what it takes to have lawns grow grass on 690 acres a total of 32” per year.

You can take all these calculations and apply them to your own business. It takes 38,000 cu ft of natural gas to produce 1 ton of urea. Greene County Fertilizer’s total input for nitrogen in 2015 is less than Johnny’s and we treated nearly 50x more ground. What’s really interesting about this is the return in energy potential if grass clippings were being harvested for fuel. 1 Lb. of grass clippings will yield roughly 9,000 btu’s, 1 cubic foot of grass clippings dry will hold about 11.7 lbs which equals 105,300 Btu’s if used as fuel, 1 cubic foot of natural gas on the other hand, will yield 100,000 Btu’s. 1 ton of urea on an acre of grass hay depending upon type will yield between 3 and 6 tons per acre. So let’s take the average of 4.5 tons and do some more math.

• One ton of Urea uses 38,000 cu ft of natural gas, this equals 3,800,000,000 btu’s.-We produce 9,000 lbs of usable hay for energy.
• 9000 lbs of hay equals 81,000,000 btu’s.
• The math says that it take 469x as much energy to grow compared to yield.

Energy in does not equal energy out.

Earlier I mentioned Organic methods as well, you would think that the numbers for organics work better than synthetic options, but do they? Let’s take a look. When looking at organic nitrogen options for lawn care, you are limited to only a couple of items, turkey and chicken. Now, some have used steer manure as well, but the results were always sh**ty. Ba-dum-bum. Some assumptions will be made as to feed type and grain. But consumption is the key here.

• It takes 250 chickens to yield 1 lb of usable N per 80 lbs of waste per day. (over their life of 9 weeks average from birth to harvest)
• It takes 56 full grown turkeys to recover 1lb of usable N on 80 lbs of waste.
• 16 lbs of feed per chicken will be given over the 9 week time frame from birth to harvest on chickens (4,000 lbs)
• 72 lbs of feed per turkey will be given to turkeys over 12 weeks. (4032 lbs)
• A bushel of grain weighs 60 lbs, therefore to feed either chickens or turkeys, you will need 67.2 bushels of grain. (grains will be mixed, so again, some liberties are taken here for the sake of illustration.)
• To produce a bushel of corn you need 1 lb of N, wheat, 1.5 lbs of N, mixed other grains will vary but stay around 1 lb of N per bushel.
• Over the life of 250 broiler chickens, you will have 108 lbs of N to put back out on the field. The same holds true for Turkeys.
• This means that the ratio for energy in to out is 1:1.60 or a 60% nitrogen gain
• However, the realization rate for manure based N is 50% annually. So, the free nitrogen return is actually 20% less than the input.

How much closer would we come on our program?

Given the same scenario we would apply 3 gallons of 18-0-1 to match the ton of Urea, this would equal 6.5 lbs of N and a total of 268.5 cubic feet of natural gas, which is 26,850,000 total btus to create 81,000,000. Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner!!! Energy in is now less than energy out.

This is the best way (in my opinion) to weigh out the result of any green industry initiative. Corn, beans, switch grass and other green bio-fuels will never add up if they don’t understand what it takes to grow crops properly. As long as we are doing mothers natures job for her and capturing nitrogen from the atmosphere by way of combustion, feeding it more than it needs, salting the soil regularly, the soil will never do what it was created to do; supply the earth with all it needs to sustain life.

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