No-Mow Grass

The EPA states that ‘using a commercial chainsaw-powered by a two-stroke engine-for two hours produces the same amount of smog-forming hydrocarbon emissions as driving ten 1995 cars about 250 miles each.'

In May of 2006, scientists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Salk Institute discovered a steroid pathway that controls plant height so that you may have a perfectly manicured lawn without ever moving or weed whacking. Farmers could greatly benefit from this because it can also be use to make crops grow larger, producing more food per acre.

How is this possible? Well, by disrupting the plants hormones called brassinosteroids, investigator Joanne Chory explains, that play a central role in the plant structure, they can turn plants into tiny dwarves. "Brassinosteroids have been found in every plant in which they've been looked for, expressed in most tissues from roots to flowers. In fact, the steroids and their accessory enzymes are conserved far into evolutionary history". Chory and her team found that animal enzymes can actually be used to activate the plant steroids.

Removing the brassinosteroids miniaturizes plants, but also effects the plants aging and reproduction. Chory explains that plants age differently from animals, one leaf at a time. Brassinosteroids promote this aging program because as she says, "When we don't have brassinosteroids in the plant, the leaves stay green, they don't turn yellow, and they also don't fall off."

Grass that has been altered to not grow anymore has some major benefits such as it would use less water, less fertilizer, stay green longer, never need moving and you can make it any height you would want. Golf courses benefit greatly from this since it's a daily chore to keep their greens green. Plus golfers would benefit from this by not having to tee off with a lawnmower chugging away 20 feet from you.

One major concern of theres is the modified genes spreading into the environment, but since the grass is no longer growing it shouldn't be able to make pollen, which should keep it from spreading. But will altering the length of the grass effect the ecosystem of animals and creatures that living in your yard?

How do you feel about this? Should they make this available to consumers right away as an attempt to cut down on carbon emissions? Or do you think it is wrong to be meedling with Mother Nature like this and we should push using more electric lawn mowers and push mowers to cut our grass.