Journal
JOURNAL OF SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION
Volume 72, Issue 4, Pages 395-404Publisher
SOIL WATER CONSERVATION SOC
DOI: 10.2489/jswc.72.4.395
Keywords
Agricultural P Balance Calculator; best management practice; phosphorus balance; phosphorus efficiency; watershed; watershed planning
Categories
Funding
- Dynamics of Coupled Human and Natural Systems under of the National Science Foundation [BCS-0908998]
- Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) through US Environmental Protection Agency's Section 319 Nonpoint Source Grant Program [CON00000001185]
- Minnesota Clean Water Fund
- USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Hatch/Multistate projects [MIN-12-023, MIN-12-059]
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Best management practices implemented to minimize agricultural phosphorus (P) water quality impacts typically focus on retaining nutrients rather than improving P use efficiencies. Although it is now well understood that long-term reduction of P loadings requires achieving a watershed level P balance, this concept is generally not incorporated in watershed planning. This paper develops a detailed P balance for the Albert Lea Lake watershed, a high production agricultural watershed in south-central Minnesota, United States. Watershed specific crop and livestock management data were acquired through personal interviews, surveys, feedlot permits, and site visits. These data, together with published resources, were used to develop an open-source Agricultural P Balance Calculator to compute P use efficiencies of livestock operations, crop production, and collectively, the watershed's agricultural system. In 2010, the P use efficiency was 1.7, indicating that more P was being exported from the watershed as agricultural products than imported, implying that crops were mining P from watershed soils. The Agricultural P Balance Calculator enables users to identify production areas where P use efficiency strategies could be incorporated into conservation implementation planning, thereby enhancing prospects for meeting P reduction goals.
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