AUBURN, Ind. — To improve conditions in the Western Lake Erie Basin (WLEB), farmers should practice the four Rs: apply nutrients at the right rate, right time, right place and using the right source, said Carrie Vollmer-Sanders, WLEB project director for The Nature Conservancy.

Measures are also needed to slow the length of time it takes for water to flow into Lake Erie, she said. One way to accomplish that is the installation of two-stage ditches. With a two-stage ditch design, a wider grassy bench is created a few feet above the original ditch channel.

The design allows water to come out of the original channel and onto the benches, decreasing the velocity of the water flow. In addition, the ditches have also helped with sediment, she said. One mile of ditch can capture about 100 tons of sediment yearly, she noted.

For producers concerned two-stage ditches might take up much of their land, Vollmer-Sanders said every mile of ditch takes about an acre of land out of production.

The WLEB covers more than 8 million acres in 40 counties in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. The water from nine watersheds in the basin flows into the western end of Lake Erie.

Drainage management, such as the use of two-stage ditches and tile, is crucial to farming in many areas of the country, said Kevin W. King, agricultural engineer with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in Columbus, Ohio.

“If we don’t have tile drainage, we’re not going to farm in this area,” he said. “We need drainage because the land is flat and soils are fine-textured. We need drainage when we’re trying to plant and when we’re trying to harvest.”

In the United States and Canada, 25 percent of cropland could not be farmed without tile drainage, King stated.

Vollmer-Sanders and King spoke during the recent Tri-State Conservation Farming Expo in Auburn. About 250-300 people were expected to attend the March 1 event.

The four Rs should be a key component of any upland management plan, King said. In addition, producers should look into practices such as cover crops, he said; cover crops promote the biological diversity of soil and provide an opportunity to put down a different root map.

 

Farmers should also think about whether to use tillage or no-till and if manure or a commercial fertilizer would be a better option for their operation. “You have to consider the uniqueness and complexity of every watershed,” he said. “Everyone wants a silver bullet. The truth is, it’s going to take buckshot to address this.”

Producers are often the best judges of what practices would be the most advantageous for their land, he said.

“Just remember, you are the active environmentalists,” he explained. “You own the land. You know what works best.”

Farmers and others with an interest in improving water quality should accept that agricultural systems are leaky, and work to minimize the side effects of that leakage, he noted.

Drainage water management – the practice of placing a water control structure at the end of a drainage outlet – is another option for producers. 

Drainage water management has been shown in studies to improve yields, he added.

For example, corn yields increased 3.3 percent in fields where the practice was used. Popcorn yields were up 3.1 percent and soybean yields increased 2.1 percent.