Conservation groups have announced a pilot project to demonstrate agricultural practices that could help end algae blooms in the Great Lakes.
The Lower Thames Conservation Authority is offering incentives to farmers in a 20 square kilometre area north of Fletcher to change the way they work their soil to try and keep phosphorus from leeching into Jeanettes Creek.
The Authority's Colin Little says runoff in the area will be monitored at a number of pumping stations.
"The idea of the program is we are going to implement a lot of agricultural best management practices as farmers, cover crops, alternative phosphorus application practices and crop and field nutrient management plans," he says. "We'll test it here, get some results see if it is an approach we should take watershed wide."
Farm nutrients receive a lot of the blame for recent algae blooms in the lakes.
Little says if the three-year experiment results in a decrease in phosphorous loss they will encourage more farmers to switch tillage systems.
