Flooding

[Hopperbin]

Nitrogen and phospherous gets injected into the soil so where do you get that it runs off? I can see hog manure running off as it typically runs down hill when it is applied, but not manufactured fertilizer.

[furrowtickler]

Agree with hopper, that fairytail does not apply to 98% of the land in Sask. This b/s came out of the U.S. where there is a problem where they apply very high rates of fert/ac and high rates of animal watse on surface. Might be an issue in feelot ally in Southern Alberta.

[SASKFARMER3]

jensend the people in the quappelle valley wrecked the lakes by Regina being able for years to dump their shit into them. So city people wrecked the lakes not farmers.
Also what does one call it when beavers have 20 dams on two quarters. Hm that's ok I guess.

[jensend]

so we should just let everyone run wild and not worry about the consequences? it's silly to think there is no nutrient loading from runoff. do you want somebody's runoff contaminated with salts running across your land or ponding there? lake winnipeg is the prime example and there will be consequences from what is happening there. as population grows everyone will be pressured to be environmentally responsible and agriculture is only one of the industries that will be scrutinized.

[jensend]

sf3 those lakes had algal blooms before the white man settled here but that doesn't mean bad practices will be allowed to continue. regina is a huge problem but measurements have been done to determine the nutrient loads of runoff and how the destruction of wetlands affects the amount of runoff and the nutrients removed by runoff. i don't think agriculture is the biggest problem but to pretend farmers will be given carte blanche to do whatever they weant regardless of effects downstream is living in a fool's paradise.

[freewheat]

Lake Winnipeg gets nutrients from a
couple things. That red river valley
area, north and south of the border,
uses extensive, and often excessive
tillage, it uses lots of hog manure, it
is downstream of a city of 700 000. In
most of Saskatchewan, no tillage is the
rule. Fewwer hogs per acre. Fewer people
per drainage basin. When soil does not
move, neither do the nutrients within.
Water runs clearer than ever before. Not
muddy brown. land, once drained, adds
little runoff, because the crop is
removing moisture from the soil profile,
so a new equillibrium is reached. Also,
there are no 7 foot cattails catching
snow all winter, so the recharge is much
less.

Just a couple things to think about.

[SASKFARMER3]

Jensend No willy nilly but blaming farmers for the problems is a crock of shit.
Sorry when the beavers have dammed up huge areas and mother nature with 30 inches of rain per last 4 years and now all this snow. Yea blame the farmers.

[jensend]

lol. blame the beavers. read what i wrote. there were problems before agriculture ever existed here but that doesn't mean you're going to be allowed to run water wherever you want. you'd be screaming bloody murder if a feedlot decided to clean their pens and dump it on your street because it was easy. maybe land ownership is going to carry some responsibility.

[Wheatking]

Holy **** some of your are living in wonderland. Telling yourself that
your are actually helping everyone out downstream by draining every acre
of land within three days of snow melt, or at the very least not causing
any harm. You can't tell me when there is guys digging ditches ten feet
deep with a track hoe that that isn't adding to the problems with
excessive rainfall.

I know and understand that we need to drain our land to get onto it too
farm. I would argue though that the problem is that what took three weeks
to a couple months to drain a decade ago is now being drained in a week
with all the ditching that is going on. And the infrastructure down
stream cannot handle the extremes volumes of water being forced upon it in
such a short period of time. Now I know that the majority of this is
coming from extreme excess snowfall and rain, but we are just exasperating
the problem instead of mitigating it. Now if the government had a brain,
with insight and vision they would fix the infrastructure to handle and
properly manage the flow, with creating outflows on some lakes, new
channels, etc... Perhaps they could have spent the disaster assistance
money on this instead of giving it to farmers to fix up their yards who
built it in a slough hole.

There is a lot of blame to go around with all this water mess, and a lot
of it rests on the farmers and govt regulation, but most is due to mother
nature. When some people had the vision and foresight to build ditches in
the 80's and 90's they where fought every step of the way be those who
where to cheap to pay the small increase in taxes to the c&d etc..., and
now everyone is paying for the small mindedness of some. The costs have
sky rocketed and are now even impossible due to increased govt regulation.

I am not against ditching by any means. I just think we should use common
sense and not push every bush and drain every slough/lake that has been
around for a century. If we can' at least use some common sense ourselves
the govt will force it upon us and then we will all lose.

[freewheat]

Wheat king you make a lot of sense in a
lot of ways. I do know for me, I was
talking v ditches mostly, not ten foot
trenches so much. I hear you on that
front.

[Horse]

BGMP .. I dont know where you is from but I am dam glad I am not a close neibour , with your attude of to hell with everyone I will do as I please I dont think we would be friendly. As for your land you bought with sloughs or bogs you got it cheaper because of them so why do you need to drain everything, so you can get those 80 ft airseeders in there.
Sask3 if you have feed enough for 20 beaver then you at least didnt drain everything good for you. A small piece of natural shouldnt hurt to leave.
What has happened to your water well levels, I know here the water table has droped 25/30ft since 2002 drought when everyone decided to farm those sloughs that were dry now they whine they are wet. No pleasing a farmer!!!

[freewheat]

Horse, the areas that have drainage areas
are not drought prone areas. Our wells
have risen substantially, drainage or not.