DITCHING FARM POLLUTION

Date of publication:  17 April 2015

Source of information:  Science news for sudents

https://student.societyforscience.org/article/ditching-farm-pollution-%E2%80%94-literally

Scientific field:Agriculture, environment  and pollution

Extract:  

This article talks about reducing  

fertilizer runoff both farmers and the environment.  Explain us a demonstration project during spring snowmelts and rains.

Critical appraisal:

As we can see in this article, funneling potentially toxic pollution from nearby farm field into nearby lakes and streams. 

First I’d like to say that nowadays scientists are looking for those ditches to keep farm chemicals and soils.  Most farms ditches in the American Midwest have a trapezoidal design.

The problem begins when farmers spend a lot of money in fertilizer. Pesticides can keep plants healthy by deterring the growth but once those chemicals leave the farm, they are pollutants.

The solution is this project that consist in:

This photo shows the cross-section that combines the strategies of winter cover crops with a 

two-stage ditch design to reduce fertilizer runoff.

The benefits are that  Indiana estimated that need less fertilizer since they began taking part 

in this project. They believe that is because lush grasses on the floodplain  level help hold 

back sediments  and  capture nutrients.

Glossary:

-Fertilizer: Nitrogen and other plants nutrients added to soil, water or foliage to boost crop growth or to replenish nutrients that removed earlier by plants roots or leaves.

-Runoff: The water that runs off of land into rivers, lakes and the seas.

-Pollutants: A substance that taints something such as the aur, water , our bodies or products.

-Trapezoid: A four-sided geometric figure with only one pair of parallel sides.   

Written by Lidia Figueras