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Impact of high fertilizer costs could have positive effect on water quality

A water quality researcher says farmers reducing fertilizer applications this year could create positive outcomes for the Western Lake Erie Basin for several years.

Laura Johnson is the director of the National Center for Water Quality Research at Heidelberg University in northeast Ohio.

“If these fertilizer prices stay high and we see rates start to go down maybe even lower than what is recommended because you’re doing what you can to get by—that probably will have a long-term effect,” she says.

Johnson tells Brownfield nutrient loading could be reduced by 20 to 30 percent this year and a longer-term reduction in legacy phosphorus is possible. 

She uses the example of 2019 when the state’s prevented planting rate was at an all-time high, 1.6 million acres, and there was nearly a 40 percent reduction in dissolved phosphorus, but…

“The bad news is that 70 percent of that phosphorus still came off when people weren’t even farming,” she says.

Johnson tells Brownfield she believes increasing adoption of conservation practices are making an impact on water quality, sometimes it just takes multiple seasons for the data to catch up.

The Center has been monitoring water quality across Ohio for more than 45 years.

Brownfield interviewed Johnson at the recent Ohio Conservation Tillage and Technology Conference.

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