Pond project

So my obsession with blue/green algae has led me to understand the frustrations that the expert doctors and scientists must be having with COVID-19. Just when you think you know the beast you are battling, it throws you a curve ball.

Just when you think this is a hot weather, static water, no air circulation problem, then you see blue/green algae under ice, in a stream fed from a spring, and then you learn cattle died from blue/green algae in March in eastern Kansas.

I have partnered with KDHE and the Kansas State University Vet Diagnostic Lab to work on some pond projects. We have been buying some barley straw from a producer in western Kansas.

This spring, we will be installing the bales of barley straw, and then KDHE will be testing the water before, during and after the bales start deteriorating.

You might have seen a promotional article in the Topeka newspaper. The first projects have been installed at Gage Park and Melvern Lake Swim pond.

As the bales start to rot, they release hydrogen peroxide, which isn’t attractive to the blue/green algae. At least, that’s the hypothesis. So we will see, and if you’d like to try this with your own wheat straw bales, I would be happy to tell you how to go about installing. I am not looking for any more ponds for this project.

For now, I’m waiting for my waders to arrive so we can get started. Best of luck to the scientists trying to figure out COVID-19 – you are rock stars!

The Holton Recorder

109 W. Fourth St.
Holton, KS 66436
Phone: 785-364-3141
 

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