Grasscycling: A Key Practice for Sustainable Turfgrass Management

Abstract

For aesthetic considerations, grass clippings are removed from lawns during mowing. When turfgrass clippings are returned, this practice is called “mulching” or grasscycling. Thus, grasscycling has increasingly become a standard practice for low-input lawns managed under a simpler maintenance system, and grasscycling has many environmental benefits. Primarily, grasscycling facilitates an increase in soil nitrogen content and soil carbon sequestered by the turfgrass ecosystem. Several studies reported that grasscycling positively influences turfgrass colour and quality. When clippings are returned, turfgrass colour and quality can be maintained with a lower amount of fertilisation than turfgrass with clipping removal. Together with these positive effects, grasscycling practices can contribute to an increase of thatch in the turfgrass sward, while its influence on weed invasion is still questionable. This grasscycling practice can result in a maintenance cost-savings and represent a low-input approach to turfgrass management in terms of nutrients returned and utilised by the turfgrass, and with carbon (C) emissions mitigated and C sequestered. The unwelcome appearance linked to grass clipping residues and vegetation on the turfgrass canopy can be easily obviated by the use of machinery that delivers clippings forcefully toward the ground to incorporate them into the verdure or by using mowers that produce clippings small enough to be returned and quickly decomposed.