Short Background
The Gulf of Mexico sits at the outlet of the USA’s largest drainage basin reaching to its farthest tributary around 2300 miles away. If you havent heard, this river has contributed to agricultural production through its deposits contributing to the surrounding areas for generation and has enabled settlements for Native Americans for even longer.
The Mississippi River however being the drainage basin for millions of acres of agricultural lands has also carried the extra nutrients along with the water, out to the Gulf of Mexico. These nutrients causes algae to “bloom” increasing populations rapidly under these high fed environments, when they die they use the oxygen in the water causing surrounding life in the water to die off.
Solutions
Farmers produce food, Nitrogen in its many forms are a requirement for agricultural’s continual output of foods and crops, and this is not going to change any time soon, basically farmers aren’t to blame. Yet there are techniques and people working towards finding solutions to the problem in the gulf, and they are coming up with different methods.
One technique being explored is growing cover crops after a season, planting a cold hardy rye which will utilize the nitrogen still available after the main crop such as corn. Not only is the plant then contributing to the organic matter content and available nitrogen but it will also keep the ground covered in the off season, allowing the land to add to its fertility.
“We only grow crops for 5 months out of the year, that the problem”
-Sara Carlson
Npr: How to End Iowa’s Great Nitrate Fight
-As technology advances field applications of fertilizers are becoming more precise using GPS data coupled with soil testing; farmers can control where and how much fertilizer is needed for a particular crop in a specific area of the field.
-Debatable is how Organic Farming may play a roll in this, as organic forms of nutrients also leach into water.
At the heart of any technique or method is the need for a holistic approach that tries to balance the potential results of an approach on agriculture and the ecosystem. We as a civilization depend on the strength of agriculture to support our society, it is in our best interest that all approaches be taken into consideration and the best tools are available to the producers in agriculture trying to make things work. Yes, fixing the Dead Zone requires a shotgun approach, but we may also have to rethink the shotgun…
Fixing the Dead Zone in the Gulf will require a Shotgun approach
Dead Zone on the Left…
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