Greenhouse gas abatement from home lawn care management practices

My dissertation focused on greenhouse gas abatement from home lawn care maintenance practices that affected N losses, soil organic carbon (SOC) change following establishment, and economic viability of management practices to reduce carbon emissions. Chapter one compared professional and do-it-yourself (DIY) approaches to home lawn care that utilized conventional or alternative products for fertilization and weed control. Nitrate leaching, N2O emissions, and aesthetic qualities of the treatments were investigated for two years following turfgrass establishment. Though alternative approaches provided turf quality equal to conventional fertilizer and pesticides, NO 3 leaching and N2O emissions were not reduced when alternative products were utilized. Chapter two compared change in SOC and soil organic nitrogen (SON) when turfgrasses were established on topsoil and subsoil. Chapter two also compared the effects of N applications and irrigation on SOC and SON change in the two soil types. Soil organic carbon and SON declined in the topsoil during the first three years following establishment. Soil organic carbon and SON of the subsoil increased during the same period. Nitrogen fertilization increased SOC and SON when compared with the non-fertilized treatments, although applying irrigation did not affect either SOC or SON. Chapter three assessed the cost effectiveness of reducing carbon emissions from lawn care practices by comparing conventional lawn care with an alternative strategy at two locations in the United States. To accomplish the comparisons, data summaries were constructed and then utilized to conduct consumption-based estimations of the carbon emissions from conventional and alternative N fertilizer production, gasoline and electric lawn mowing, and irrigation. Cost effectiveness of alternative practices to reduce carbon was determined from both annual cost and the marginal abatement cost of carbon reduction. Though the marginal abatement cost of the alternative N fertilizer was an expensive option to make reductions, the electric lawn mower could provide a cost effective method to reduce carbon emissions. Irrigation accounted for up to 98% of the total carbon emissions and was the largest source of emissions at both locations. Reductions of lawn care emissions can be accomplished from the use of alternative practices, however, the alternatives were sometimes more expensive.