OSU Researchers Working to Improve Lake Erie Water Quality

Dec. 3, 2014

Study: Most Farmers Willing to Take More Steps to Improve Water Quality

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Most farmers in the Maumee River watershed that drains into Lake Erie are willing to take at least one additional action to reduce nutrient loss on their farm if they feel like the action will both benefit their farms as well as water quality.

 

 

 

http://agnr.osu.edu/news/study-most-farmers-willing-take-more-steps-improve-water-quality

Ohio State Experts Offer Tips on Best Management Practices to Keep Phosphorus on the Field, Improve Water Quality

pond near barn

Growers wanting to increase crop yields while helping to improve Ohio’s water quality can do so using a set of best management practices when applying fertilizer to their fields this fall, according to a group of agronomists and agricultural engineers with Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.    

http://agnr.osu.edu/news/ohio-state-experts-offer-tips-best-management-practices-keep-phosphorus-field-improve-water

 

Gypsum Spread on Farms Could Help Keep Water Clean, Not Green

WOOSTER, Ohio — Gypsum, which has roots in the past as a farm soil treatment, also may have a bright future, and not just as a booster of crops but also a protector of water.

Warren Dick, a scientist in Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, is two years into a three-year study of gypsum’s benefits on farms, including to soil quality, crop yields and reducing phosphorus runoff.

So far, he said, farm fields in his study treated with gypsum are seeing an average 55-percent reduction in soluble phosphorus runoff, based on tests of water samples collected from the fields’ drainage tiles.

“There’s no one technology that’s going to solve the issue of phosphorus runoff,” said Dick, a soil and environmental chemistry professor in the college’s School of Environment and Natural Resources. “But I think gypsum is going to become one of the tools in the toolbox, something farmers will use with other approaches as part of their total management package.”

http://agnr.osu.edu/news/gypsum-spread-farms-could-help-keep-water-clean-not-green