AgNet 

Water quality success stories: Saturate that buffer for crop’s sake

By Greg McGlinch, CCA, PhD, assistant professor, Wright State University Lake Campus and Stephen J. Jacquemin, PhD, professor, Wright State University Lake Campus 

Driving across the rural Ohio landscape, you might occasionally see little gray objects with black caps poking their heads up around fields adjacent to streams and rivers. These gray box-like structures hold an opportunity for farmers and landowners to increase their ability to reduce nutrient loading while conserving precious water in their fields. The name of these little boxes are controlled drainage structures and they can be part of a bigger conservation practice called saturated buffers. 

This is a typical saturated buffer layout consisting of a non-perforated tile outlet pipe (1), water control structure (2), perforated distribution pipe (3), and vegetated buffer (4). Graphic is from Extension publication ABE-160-W.

Saturated buffers utilize water control structures to divert subsurface tile water from agricultural fields into the riparian buffer by redirecting drainage through perforated tiles feeding these edge- of-stream vegetated transitional habitats.… Continue reading