Danielle Follette, CEES Staff, and Jacob Burch, CEES Undergraduate Intern, have become quite familiar with the agricultural landscape over the past few months as the April showers are providing data for CEES’ Edge of Field research project. During a rain event, collection of water samples is triggered by water flow volume and collected in ISCO samplers.
After the samples are collected by the ISCO sampler, Danielle and Jacob head to Starkey Farms to retrieve them. These samples are then brought back to the CEES labs where they are filtered and processed. Samples are then forwarded to Dr. Pierre-Andre Jacinthe for further analysis. In this stage, the water samples will be examined for amounts of nitrogen, phosphorous and other contaminants.
Sustainable agricultural practices should improve the quality of water leaving the fields at Starkey Farms, and we hope to show that nutrients are not being added to the nearby stream. After baseline data have been established, the amounts of fertilizer added to the fields (precision vs. conventional ag) can be adjusted to see what if any changes it will make to stream quality.