 | Below you will find four scenarios that describe what is happening throughout your fields. Use what you have learned about soil erosion control methods to come up with what you think is the best solution in each situation. Print a copy of this worksheet. |
- Your fields to the southwest of the farmstead are relatively flat. You notice that the ditches between your fields and the road are becoming clogged with soil from the fields. The erosion problem is especially bad in the farthest SW corner where the field slopes slightly down towards the road. Because the ditches are filled with silt, rainwater has nowhere to go and this makes the road a mess for your farm machinery, bicycles, pedestrians, and cars! Contour farming really won't help in this situation because the slopes aren't so steep. What are a couple of things you can do to stop the run-off?
- To the immediate east of your farmstead there is a depression where your two sixty acre fields meet. Last fall you had problems with an excess of rainwater accumulating in that depression. This run-off carried with it soil from those fields. What would be a good solution to this problem?
- You have one large seventy-five acre field directly to the east of the field that is extremely hilly. You discovered that last fall's heavy rains carried a lot of valuable topsoil from this field into the flatter, fifty acre field to the north. You had planned to plant only corn in that seventy-five acre field this spring, but you may want to rethink this. As you prepare to plant this spring, what might you do with this field instead?
- As you notice these soil problems all over your farm, you realize that every type of land is vulnerable to erosion. You have used some methods that work best for specific kinds of fields, but you also want to come up with a plan that you can apply to all of your land. What are a couple of things you can do on a regular basis to cut down on erosion even more?
| Soil erosion problems are often worse in monoculture fields. Why do you think this is? |