The project is part of a wider effort to determine how fertilizer use correlates with fertilizer emissions and yield. Finding the right rate for high yields and lower emissions — rate being one of the nutrient management Four Rs — is the tricky one. Millions of data points from the domed chambers are gathered every day. IMPROVING WATER QUALITY Another project seeks to help farmers — and, potentially, municipalities and other groups — clean up waterways and water bodies through the use of floating islands of wetland plants. Buffer strips and other wetland plant vegetation along the water’s edge absorb and filter nutrients and other contaminants. 8 The idea, says Daniel Karren, an ecohydrologist and one of the researchers involved in the project, is to expand the amount of edge vegetation to a point where contaminated water can be re-used. Currently, they are gathering data from a pond with five per cent floating island coverage (each island is approximately 32 square feet). The islands themselves are self-perpetuating, meaning little maintenance isrequired. They are also inexpensive — something Karren believes makes their adoption by farmers more likely. Although the campus demonstration site focuses on livestock farmers and the need to reduce the costs associated with trucking drinking water to feedlots — a particularly expensive task in light of the drought conditions experienced across the Canadian West — Karren says floating islands of grasses and other plants could beemployed anywhere water quality needs to be improved, such as in storm ponds or water treatment processes. He adds it might be possible to target different contaminants with different plant species. These are just a few examples of Smart Farm research and extension initiative. More about the Olds College Smart Farm, Woodstock Discovery Farm, and other Smart Farm locations and initiatives is available at www.oldscollege.ca/Smartfarm-research. l YEVGEN MYKHAYLINCHENKO, PROFESSOR AND TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION SPECIALIST AT OLDS COLLEGE, OPERATES THE RAVEN OMNIPOWER SYSTEM. PHOTO COURTESY OF OLDS COLLEGE. continued from page 6
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