One of the strongest results that one can hope for when studying decidability questions in groups is the decidability of equations - is there an algorithm that, if we feed it a group equation, tells us if the equation has or does not have a solution in a given group? I will discuss this problem in the setting of wreath products of abelian groups. In particular, I will explain how to prove that the problem is decidable for quadratic equations, using techniques and intuitions inspired by commutative algebra. This is joint work with Ruiwen Dong and Jan-Philipp Wächter.