Most plants – including trees and grasses – make their own food with photosynthesis. Yet not all plants produce the same amount of oxygen. For example, an acre of grass produces more oxygen than an acre of trees. Estimates vary, but it is commonly cited that one acre of trees with full foliage produces enough oxygen for between 8 and 18 people while an acre of grass produces enough oxygen for 70 people.
This has implications for what people think is “good” or “bad” for the environment – and our health. For example, the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is blamed for choking off the planet’s oxygen supply. However, as National Geographic reported several years ago, “of the many important reasons to worry about the thousands of fires raging in the world’s largest rainforest, oxygen supply is not one of them.”
In our next article, we’ll compare grass and trees in terms of an oxygen-containing compound: carbon dioxide.
