are dried grass clippings green or brown?

16 years ago

I may be way overthinking this whole lasagna thing.

Today I picked up bags in my neighborhood from other folks yard work to use in my lasagna beds.

I got about 5 bags of grass clippings but the grass looked kind of like straw. Would I use this as a green layer or a brown layer?

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Comments (4)

billmc13
16 years ago
If it's truly dry, it has become carbon (brown).
digdirt2
16 years ago
Lots of discussion/debate on this question over the years. The hang-up is that what many think is "dried" usually isn't...dried enough to be called a carbon that is. ;)

I have linked a couple of the best prior discussions for you if you want to review them for more details and there are many more that a search using "grass clippings" will pull up if interested.

But I think the easiest way to go is to think of so-called "dried grass clippings" as a mixture of the two - sure they are part carbon (or browns) but they also still contain a high % of nitrogen (green) no matter how dry they are.

So treat them as a great addition to your compost but weigh them equally on both sides of the green/brown question. Then if you note an odor developing you'll know they were still 'mostly' green and you can then add more carbons or vice-versa. ;)

Dave

Grass clippings - green or brown

When green turns brown
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Here is a link to a recent discussion, It contains a link to some earlier discussions. I will quote from the part about greens becoming browns. Quote:I believe that 2 mechanisms are mineralization and denitrification- although they are normally described in soils or water. In the first- N forms (simple anions, or from proteins) are transformed into NH4+, and NH3 is lost because it is volatile. Normal thermal/ light induced degradation and bacterial action can cause this to happen (going on memory here). In denitrification NO3- is directly converted to N2 as part of the nitrogen cycle. You may remember basic fishtank chemistry where NH4+ --> NO2- --> NO3- . I guess this is the opposite of that. Going on memory there. However- green leaves turning brown, fresh cut green grass drying out and turning brown- both are accompanied by loss of N as a volatile. I'm sure that autocatalytic breakdown of the proteins in the greens would cause loss of a variety of N bearing compounds. Manures and urine often contain urea, which has a very simple pathway to NH3 conversion.
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Grass clippings
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Comments (8)
Here is the million dollar question. "When do green grass clippings dry enough to become a brown?" Drying grass does not make it "brown." Most of the nitrogen is retained when grass is dried, if it is dried under ideal circumstances. That being warm sunny days and the grass is turned frequently. The grass still retains its green colour and its nutrient value to livestock. If on the other hand, the grass is rained on and stays wet, the bacteria will begin to decompost the grass consuming the nitrogen leaving mostly carbohydrates or "browns" behind. The moist grass is an ideal environment for the bacteria to live and thrive. Just like the moist environment of the compost pile. Although I speak of the nitrogen content of grass, livestock regard it as a protein source. Divide the protein percentage of any animal feed by 6.25 and you get the nitrogen percentage. The organic soy bean meal added to a garden plot is 46.5% protein or 7.5% nitrogen. I will be expecting that million dollar cheque in the mail shortly. Here is a link that might be useful: Coping With Poor Hay Crop Quality
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Mulched with grass clippings, grass sprouts everywhere
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Comments (11)
Bermuda grass is not the only type of grass that can create these sorts of "weed" problems, although it does have a reputation for being one of the worst. A great many other common turf grass species can display this trait. Turf grasses come in three different growth habits -- clumpers, rhizomatous and stoloniferous -- and most common lawn blends, both warm and cool season grasses, combine a variety of both. Bentgrass, Kentucky blue and creeping ryegrass -- all of which are common to various cool season grass mixtures -- are either rhizomatous or stoloniferous and can create rooting, weedy problems when applied as a mulch to a planting bed. There are a number of other various grass species as well that will create similar issues. Bermuda and Zoisya grass are well known for this problem as well and they tend to be used most often in warmer climates (warm season grasses) and often as a single species rather than as part of a blend of various turf grasses.
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dried grass clippings
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Comments (4)
i am wanting to start this on a commercial level. i have lots of types of grass on my place here and none are bermuda. is this cool to use for some of the bedding along with the newspaper and leaves and such?
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bpgreen
16 years ago
Digdirt--thanks for posting the links. I read those threads (and the links to other threads in those threads).

If I understand it correctly, if you take grass clippings from green grass and dry them, they would probably be a green, but if you cut grass that is dry because it is dormant or dead, those clippings would probably be a brown.

So I guess the way I look at it is that it depends on whether, by dried grass clippings, you mean "clippings of dried grass" or "dried clippings of grass." The former would be a brown and the latter a green.
Kimmsr
16 years ago
Whether grass clippings are a "green", a source of Nitrogen, or a "brown", not a source of Nitrogen, depends somewhat on how they were handled after cutting, but generally grass clippings would be a Nitrogen source, unless the were allowed to go to seed and all the nutrients that would be in the grass went toward that seed production.

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are dried grass clippings green or brown?

Comments (4)

billmc13

digdirt2

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