What Makes The Grass Grow? See What Makes The Grass Plant Grow

“What makes the grass grow?” Blood makes grass grow! This chant is popular in the U.S. Marines. If you’re in the U.S. Marines, chances are, you’ll undoubtedly hear such chants during training.

It makes the security outfit’s tedious training fun. But then again, can blood cause the grass to grow? Not possible! Blood can’t make grass grow. Other factors do.

In this post, we’ll clear the air on things that cause grass to grow. We surely don’t want the next generation to start assuming that blood causes grass to grow.

Now, let’s go back to the primary question.

What makes the grass grow?

Four factors make grass grow. These include water, soil temperature, sunlight, and carbon dioxide. In the absence of any of these, grass can’t grow or even grow faster.

In addition to the factors above, grasses also require nutrients to grow. The three most crucial nutrients they need include nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus.

However, of all three nutrients, nitrogen stands as the most important. Why? It’s what gives grasses their captivating, vivid colors and causes them to grow much faster.

Fertilizer still causes grass to grow. As long as you utilize the appropriate amount of fertilizer on your grass and at the right time, you’ll find your lawn grasses growing more robust and faster.

So, that’s the answer to the question on grass’s growth. However, we have more in store for you. Keep reading!

What You Need To Know About The Grass Plant

Everyone knows or presumably knows what the grass plant is. Furthermore, some experts believe that humans would have been a beast of burden without the presence of grass on our planet.

You can claim associating humans with such an inhumane description is wrong. But the truth is that would have been the case if not for the presence of grasses.

So, grasses are essential, even though we don’t treat them as such. Most of us only value trees because of expert advice that we can address global warming with more trees.

Now, here’s the thing. Researchers have now concluded that grasses are as crucial as trees to save our planet from global warming. Thus, we must treat grasses with utmost care. Most people may not see any sense in this.

But if you care about saving our planet, you should start thinking of how to plant some grasses around your home.

Now, let’s go back to the question. What is grass? The grass is an herbaceous plant belonging to the Poaceae family called Gramineae. Grass can grow wild, and you can cultivate the plant on pastures, lawns, and even as a fodder plant.

The grass boasts a narrow leaf that practically grows from its base. Additionally, you’ll find grasses scattered across different parts of the globe.

What Makes The Grass A Special Plant?

The grass plant is one of the most important plants on the planet. Yet, we don’t accord the plant the respect and accolade it deserves. A weed is all most people think and see whenever they come across grasses.

It will interest you to know that fifteen crops sustain humankind. And shockingly, ten of those crops happen to be grass. So, without grass, it would have been impossible for humanity to thrive on planet earth.

So, grass has great economic importance. But before we visit that, let’s discuss its characteristics. What makes a grass so unique? Well, grasses have several characteristics. Let’s break them down for proper understanding.

The grass is monocotyledonous: This means only a single leaf comes out of a grass’s seed.
Grass boasts slender, sheathed, and jointed leaves during the germination stage.
Grasses can be as small as the annual bluegrass or as large as corn or bamboo.
Humans can’t digest grass’s green leaves, but animals can.
Grass boasts over 10,000 species. Only daisies and orchids boast more species than grass.
Grass has a surprisingly colossal adaption range. There’s grass for every precipitation or temperature range. All these make introducing grass into a new area a breeze.
The grass plant accounts for approximately 26 percent of the plant life that exists on planet earth.
The United States of America has approximately 1,400 species of the 10,000 species of grasses on planet earth.
Having a healthier lawn can help to raise a home’s value by 20 percent.
Grass boasts an incredible root system that helps to keep the soil together. That’s why grass-covered hillsides, prairies, or lawns are less prone to erosion.
Grass’s largest variety is the giant bamboo. And interestingly, this plant can grow to approximately 151 feet in height.
The Grassland biome covers 25 percent of the earth.
Grasses can have massive importance on air quality, climate, and water. A lawn as large as 2,500 square feet can produce enough oxygen for a family made of four persons.
Every continent on planet earth has a grassland biome, except Antarctica.
Having a healthy lawn can make your family healthy. How? Grasses not only produce enough oxygen. They can also help to trap contaminants and airborne dust.

Parts Of A Grass

Let’s look at the various parts of a grass plant.

Rhizome:

Another name for rhizome is rootstalk or creeping rootstalk. It’s a modified horizontal stem, which runs below the soil surface. Rhizome grasses usually grow and spread faster. Thus, the best way to stop them is by erecting a barrier.

A Handy Tip:

A grass that boasts the capacity to produce many rhizomes is known as rhizomatous grass. Warm-season grasses that grow rhizomes include zoysiagrass and bermudagrass.

Roots:

The root refers to the part of the grass or any plant underneath the soil. Its primary function includes absorption of dissolved minerals and water. The root also holds the grass plant firmly in place. And it’s the reason lawn grasses are capable of making soil less erosion-prone.

Stolon:

This refers to a stem above the ground that usually creeps along the soil surface. A grass that can produce multiple stolons is known as stoloniferous grass. Warm weather grasses capable of producing stolons include St Augustine grass, bermudagrass, centipedegrass, and zoysiagrass.

Stem:

The stem is one of the grass’s main structural axes and lies above the soil surface. It holds the buds, leaves, and flowers in place. The stem also helps transport the dissolved nutrient and water absorbed by the root to other parts of the plant.

Node:

Every living plant has nodes. They refer to a point on the plant’s stem where the branching twig, buds, or leaves originates. The node is an essential point on a plant. Structural support, healing, and crucial biological processes occur there.

Sheath:

This is a unique protective covering on the plant. It’s the leaf blade’s lower portion that encircles the grass. Because sheaths differ in structure, they’re helpful for identification purposes.

Ligule:

Ligule refers to an outgrowth that usually occurs in the sheath. This portion of the plant is also helpful for identification purposes, thanks to its varying shape, texture, and shape.

Collar:

If you’re seeking to identify vegetative-stage grasses, this is one of the most critical parts of the plant to consider.

It’s a tiny band of connective tissues found at the sheath and leaf blade (lamina).

Auricle:

This portion refers to claw appendages found at some leaf blade’s base. You should know that not all grasses have an auricle.

Leaf-blade:

This part of the grass is also called the lamina. It lies above the sheath.

Is Grass Relevant To The Environment?

The call for countries to start implementing climate change policies by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has never been more vital. Many countries have witnessed the devastating impacts of climate change in the last decades.

Experts have also offered advice on tree planting as a means of curtailing climate change. Not many have given thought to the planting of grasses. But in recent times, things have changed. People are now beginning to see that the lawn on their property offers more benefits than aesthetics.

Lawns can help make you and your family members healthier.

Furthermore, researchers from the prestigious UC Davis, a university best known for ecology and evolution, among other things, have provided a report that shows how valuable grasslands are.

The researchers discovered that grasslands might even be better carbon sinkers than forests.

Why? Grasses tend to store their carbon underneath. Thus, during a fire outbreak or drought, little carbon gets lost.

So, yes! Grasses can prove helpful in our quest to reverse climate change. They can help to trap carbon dioxide, which is one of the agents of climate change.

Unfortunately, countries are only spending a huge chunk of their resources on forests. Thus, the attention forests get is higher than grasslands. But if things can change and we start paying equal attention to both, we might be able to address the issue of climate change better than we think.

A Handy Tip: Grasses are valuable to our existence. They’re helpful in biomass fuel, medicine, and the production of several building materials.

Conclusion

So, what makes grass grow? Blood doesn’t make the grass grow. What grass needs to grow include moisture, sunlight, and soil temperature. Fertilization can also help to encourage grass growth.

The grass is a valuable plant, though it doesn’t get the respect it deserves. For the record, it provides food for humankind, helps keep the soil together, and plays a crucial ecological role.

We would also like to use this opportunity to encourage every homeowner to continue maintaining their lawns. A well-managed lawn can contribute positively to your family’s health. It can also increase your property’s value by a wide margin.