– If grass seed requires such specific care and constant moisture/watering for 7-10 days to germinate, how does it proliferate in nature with such onerous needs?

Question

How does grass seed proliferate in nature, especially in dry climates, if it requires so much water to germinate?

In: 344

Answer 1

I don’t think anyone has said this yet, so here’s another aspect: survival rates.

Sea turtles lay ~100 eggs at a time, and only about 1 in 1,000 hatchlings make it to adulthood. That is a successful strategy as far as nature is concerned, because the species still exists. However, we humans aren’t okay with that. We would rather put in effort raising one single ~~hatchling~~ baby (or occasionally more, ofc) as best as we can, to maximize the rate of humans making it to adulthood.

It’s similar with grasses. Grass plants will happily dump millions of seeds into the landscape, and if a few survive to actually germinate and grow, that’s a win. But we human gardeners would rather put in the effort to maximize that rate, buying 10 lbs of seed and seeing 90%+ germinate under perfect conditions, rather than buying 100 lbs of seed and have <10% germinate under poor conditions.