Ohio Farmers Improving Water Quality Through Fertilizer Applicator Training
July 15, 2015 Since last fall, 6,586 growers and producers responsible for farming some 1 million acres of Buckeye State farmland have gone through fertilizer applicator certification training offered by researchers from the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University as part of the college’s efforts to continue to improve Ohio water quality, reports Tracy Turner on AgAnswers.
Taught by Ohio State University Extension’s Agriculture and Natural Resources program staff, the training is designed to help farmers increase crop yields using less fertilizer more efficiently, thus reducing the potential for phosphorus runoff into the state’s watersheds.
The ultimate goal of the training is to keep nutrient runoff from fertilizers, especially phosphorus, out of Ohio’s waters, said Greg LaBarge, an OSU Extension field specialist and co-leader of Ohio State’s Agronomic Crops Team. OSU Extension is the college’s outreach arm.
The training, which meets the educational needs of Ohio’s new agricultural fertilization law, is just one aspect of the work Ohio State is doing to continue to improve water quality. The new law requires farmers who apply fertilizer to more than 50 acres to become certified.
The training supplements the college’s Field to Faucet water quality program announced in September 2014 and launched in March designed to ensure safe drinking water while maintaining an economically productive agricultural sector. The program already has five initial projects up and running, said Jay Martin, an ecological engineer in Ohio State’s Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, who was chosen to lead Field to Faucet.
Read the full story on AgAnswers.
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