(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2003-04)
Franklin, Dorcas H.; Cabrera, Miguel L.; Steiner, Jean L.; Risse, Larry A.; Risse, L. Mark; Hibbs, Henry E.
Producers in the Southern Piedmont graze
and manage their lands in a variety of ways across
watersheds and across individual farms. These land
management practices may have an impact on the
nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations in
stream base flow and storm flow. A group of producers,
researchers and educators (WATER/FAIR) pulled
together to assess stream nutrient concentrations relative
to land management practices in two typical Southern
Piedmont watersheds. The objective of this paper is to
increase awareness of participatory monitoring and of
the spatial and temporal distribution of stream nutrients
(N & P) at watershed and farm levels. Results showed
that dissolved reactive P (DRP) concentrations were
highly variable depending on the management system.
Stream base flow nitrate concentrations were lower
leaving farms than going into farms more than more than
75 percent of the time and were 16 percent lower in
2000 than in 1999. These lower concentrations coming
out of farms could suggest that these management
systems are not losing nutrients to aquatic systems but
rather utilizing them on the farm.