Flooding

[jensend]

Would it be fair for people like
property owners on the qu'appelle lakes
to ask you to keep the nitrogen and
phosphorus from leaving your land when
you drain it? The nutrients you're
applying and then turning loose may very
well be pollutants once they leave your
land.

[bgmb]

I would argue there is no more runoff from fields I have improved the drainage on compared to ones left in their natural state. Once I have the field drained then I grow larger crops on it and therefore use more water growing larger yields over a greater percentage of the field and might even cause less runoff in the long run.

[Hopperbin]

Nitrogen and phospherous gets injected into the soil so where do you get that it runs off? I can see hog manure running off as it typically runs down hill when it is applied, but not manufactured fertilizer.

[furrowtickler]

Agree with hopper, that fairytail does not apply to 98% of the land in Sask. This b/s came out of the U.S. where there is a problem where they apply very high rates of fert/ac and high rates of animal watse on surface. Might be an issue in feelot ally in Southern Alberta.

[SASKFARMER3]

jensend the people in the quappelle valley wrecked the lakes by Regina being able for years to dump their shit into them. So city people wrecked the lakes not farmers.
Also what does one call it when beavers have 20 dams on two quarters. Hm that's ok I guess.

[jensend]

so we should just let everyone run wild and not worry about the consequences? it's silly to think there is no nutrient loading from runoff. do you want somebody's runoff contaminated with salts running across your land or ponding there? lake winnipeg is the prime example and there will be consequences from what is happening there. as population grows everyone will be pressured to be environmentally responsible and agriculture is only one of the industries that will be scrutinized.

[jensend]

sf3 those lakes had algal blooms before the white man settled here but that doesn't mean bad practices will be allowed to continue. regina is a huge problem but measurements have been done to determine the nutrient loads of runoff and how the destruction of wetlands affects the amount of runoff and the nutrients removed by runoff. i don't think agriculture is the biggest problem but to pretend farmers will be given carte blanche to do whatever they weant regardless of effects downstream is living in a fool's paradise.

[freewheat]

Lake Winnipeg gets nutrients from a
couple things. That red river valley
area, north and south of the border,
uses extensive, and often excessive
tillage, it uses lots of hog manure, it
is downstream of a city of 700 000. In
most of Saskatchewan, no tillage is the
rule. Fewwer hogs per acre. Fewer people
per drainage basin. When soil does not
move, neither do the nutrients within.
Water runs clearer than ever before. Not
muddy brown. land, once drained, adds
little runoff, because the crop is
removing moisture from the soil profile,
so a new equillibrium is reached. Also,
there are no 7 foot cattails catching
snow all winter, so the recharge is much
less.

Just a couple things to think about.

[SASKFARMER3]

Jensend No willy nilly but blaming farmers for the problems is a crock of shit.
Sorry when the beavers have dammed up huge areas and mother nature with 30 inches of rain per last 4 years and now all this snow. Yea blame the farmers.

[jensend]

lol. blame the beavers. read what i wrote. there were problems before agriculture ever existed here but that doesn't mean you're going to be allowed to run water wherever you want. you'd be screaming bloody murder if a feedlot decided to clean their pens and dump it on your street because it was easy. maybe land ownership is going to carry some responsibility.