NWISRL PublicationsSediment pond effectiveness for removing phosphorus from PAM-treated irrigation furrowsD.L.BjornebergauthorR.D.LentzauthorPolyacrylamide (PAM) greatly reduces erosion on furrow-irrigated fields and sediment ponds can be constructed to remove suspended sediment from irrigation runoff. Both practices are approved for reducing phosphorus (P) loading in the Lower Boise River Pollution Trading Project in southwest Idaho, but information is not available about using both practices on the same field. The objective of this study was to measure the combined effects of PAM application and sediment ponds on sediment and P losses from a furrow-irrigated field. Small sediment ponds (5.8 m 2) with a 60-min design retention time were installed on two fields to receive runoff from PAM-treated or control furrows. Pond inflow and outflow were monitored during a total of 11 irrigations on the two fields. Three crop years of data showed that applying PAM to furrows reduced sediment and total P mass transport to the ponds 50% to 80%, which reduced the mass of sediment and total P retained in the ponds. However, PAM application did not change the percentage of sediment (86%) and total P (66%) retained. The PAM-sediment pond combination reduced average total P loss by 86% to 98%, based on the difference between untreated inflow and PAM-treated outflow. PAM and sediment ponds had little or no effect on dissolved reactive P (DRP) concentrations. The mass of DRP retained in sediment ponds was directly related to the amount of water that infiltrated within the ponds. Applying PAM to irrigation furrows and installing sediment ponds at the end of the field can be an effective combination for reducing sediment and total phosphorus losses from furrow-irrigated fields, but these practices only reduced soluble P losses by decreasing the volume of water that ran off the fields.SedimentWater-soluble PAM (WSPAM)Mass Import - autoclassified (may be erroneous)2005Article

For work being deposited by its own author: In self-archiving this collection of files and associated bibliographic metadata, I grant NWISRL Publications the right to store them and to make them permanently available publicly for free on-line. I declare that this material is my own intellectual property and I understand that NWISRL Publications does not assume any responsibility if there is any breach of copyright in distributing these files or metadata. (All authors are urged to prominently assert their copyright on the title page of their work.)

For work being deposited by someone other than its author: I hereby declare that the collection of files and associated bibliographic metadata that I am archiving at NWISRL Publications) is in the public domain. If this is not the case, I accept full responsibility for any breach of copyright that distributing these files or metadata may entail.

Clicking on the deposit button indicates your agreement to these terms.