7b - BMPs

What does BMPs stand for

Best Management Practices

Why are BMPs practices implemented

to protect and enhance soils, and to protect the environment

Tilage practices

tillage impacts soil structure - creates particles more prone to disturbance and transport

It also incorporates residue, reducing ground cover

Verical (turbo-till)

should only break up the top 2 inches

Disc

6 inches of turnover

Crop rotations

planting different crops on a particular piece of land each growing season

Cover cropsplanted

planted over the winter months when fields are fallow, providing coverage

BMPs - retain plant residues

• Reduce interrill erosion by increasing the ground cover percentage 

  • More residue left on surface, reduce erosion 

• Soil cover provides macropores and slow down water movement → better infiltration → less erosion

BMP - Windbreak

Trees - reduces wind erosion - wind is deflected upward by the trees and is slowed down beefore reaching them. effect of windbreaks extend 10 (to 20?) times the height of the tree

BMP - Installed soil covers

• hydroseeder

• mats/ blankets

BMP - Installed soil covers - Hydroseeder

allows vegetative cover to be efficiently established on difficult- to reachareas. Machine sprays a mixture of water, chopped straw, grass seeds, fertilizer, and sticky polymers that hold the mulch in place until grass seeds can take root

BMP - Installed soil covers - Erosion control mats/ blankets

made of plastic netting or natrual materials and are layed down over newly seeded grass to hold the seed and soil in place until the vegetative cover is established

Most effective but even straw greatly reduces erosion

BMP - contour tillage

practice of tillage, planting, and other farming operations performed on or near the contour of the field slope

BMP - Grassed waterways

A natrual or constructed channel that is shaped or graded to require dimensions and established waith suitbale vegetation'

Used to convey runoff from concentrated flow without causing soil erosion, to control gully erosion, and/ or to protect and improve water quality

BMPs - Grass contour hedges

• The use of vegetative barriers to create natural terraces

• (left): the root cuttings are planted perpendicular to the slope direction

• (right): in a year or so the grass will be well established and its dense roots and shoot growth will serve as a barrier to hold soil particles while permitting some water to pass on through

T/ F: BMPS can both reduce erosion and increase yields

True

BMP - Terracing

a soil conservation practice applied to prevent rainfall runoff on sloping land from accumulating and causing serious erosion

ill-suited to mechanized agriculture

BMP - Barriers

temporary structures that are typically used around the edge of construction sites

A silt fence myst be embeded in the soil

BMP - Impoundment of Runoff - sediment and stormwater retention

protect wayerways more than redcue erosion