Last Updated on December 14, 2023 by Brian Beck
People often have a misconception of the difference between a liability and an asset. I have come to understand an asset as a commodity that generates income and a liability is a possession that does not. While we will be speaking about having a lawn, and I understand that lawns are generally elective however the lawn within the context of a landscape holds a greater value than say the Corvette you have parked in your garage as it is a living thing with potential effects on your health. I know assets and liabilities are generally viewed in the context of finances but I’d like to take a step back and look at the greater picture of what a lawn actually represents in that context of economic impact.
Lawns hold value for people. Depending on that perspective of perceived value they can either be viewed upon as a hassle or for those who enjoy and spend time in their landscape, hold the great aesthetic and psychological value that impacts their lives. We will be speaking to these people in this article. If your lawn is a hassle or you despise the concept of the landscape and wished that you lived in an apartment you should stop reading right now this will not apply to you. If you are however the individual that takes the time to do your research, implement practical policies that revolve around logic and common sense in order to be efficient please continue to read.
There are two universes in which to manage a lawn, the synthetic model and the biological model. If you have not read any of our other blogs let me bring you up to speed and save you 20+5 years of effort. Synthetic lawns take man-made products which kill off the biological aspects of a soil due to their inorganic salts that they are made from and in doing so create secondary problems (or hidden costs) that cost money and are largely unnecessary. These man-made products force-feed plants in an unnatural way using inorganic chemistry. I like to compare these two methamphetamines and steroids. They both work however they have terrible side effects. The other model, which uses biology uses microbial life, carbon and the phenomena of photosynthesis to cycle nutrients from both the soil and the atmosphere to achieve fertility. The system uses both microbial life which has a DNA and is living to work in a synergistic manner with a plant that has DNA and is living to complete the cycle of life and manage systems such as the carbon cycle and the water cycle in a natural environment, in a natural ecosystem.
Here is what you should know. The synthetic system which uses inorganic chemistry creates a dependency on the plant for human involvement. The system if not perpetuated by direct human action will lead to a complete collapse of the system. The biological system which uses carbon is a sustainable system that will create its own resources and draw them from the environment, limiting the need for human intervention. We are dealing with a man-made environment but the principles of biology come into play, which if enabled will create what I refer to an asset in the soil which is carbon. Carbon is the energy source for the microbial life which is both achieved by the act of photosynthesis, which draws carbon out of the atmosphere and deposits it into the soil to be used as a resource. Carbon is also achieved by the degradation of organic matter, or material that once had a DNA and at one point was alive. These two sources the carbon are largely wasted in a synthetic system and typically are wasted on the surface before it has a chance to turn into humus and then topsoil or is volatile back into the atmosphere unutilized. The other advantage of carbon is that it increases water carrying capacity of the soil and has the ability to trap water in the soil until it can be utilized by the plant. These two forces of carbon are an asset that do not exist in the synthetic system. This is the chief aim of a biological system and the greater the carbon content in the soil, the greater the potential there is for biological life to process it into plant progress.
If you want to have an asset in your soil and escape the misery of inefficiency that takes a toll on your sanity and your pocketbook you will need an asset that is carbon. In other words you will need a biological system to escape these inefficiencies.