University researchers recently discovered a solution to reduce pollution in lakes and rivers by planting more diverse crops in farmlands and surrounding the crops with buffers.The study, “Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment,” found corn fields produce the highest levels of the nitrate that pollutes the waters.”Half the waters in the U.S. are impaired for swimming or fishing or recreational context,” said R. Eugene Turner, study researcher and coastal ecology professor. “The water quality in the U.S. is not real good.”Turner and Whitney Broussard, who works for the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, researched the history of land uses from the past 100 years.Broussard acquired census data dating back to 1850 to study the land use from agriculture, Turner said.The study wanted to pin down the main cause of the high levels of nitrogen in the water, and the coastal ecologists found corn crops to be the main cause.Most corn is grown in the Midwest, and the nitrate leaves the soil from the shallow roots and travels down the rivers, and Louisiana waters are affected by the molecules, Turner said.Nitrogen is in the soil from fertilizer, and it easily gets washed out of the farmlands and then moves into the water, he said.When the nitrate travels into the water, it produces aqua algae, and the oxygen is removed from the area, Turner said. Almost 60 percent of the nitrogen in the water leaks from the soil of agriculture crops, he said.The problem has existed as far back as 1850, but Turner said their research wants to quantify the source of the problem.”The average [nitrogen] concentrations in the 63 rivers monitored over the past century were three to four times higher at the end of the century as compared with those at the beginning,” the report read.One reason the levels of nitrogen are higher now is the industrial landscape, Turner said. Farmers used to plant different types of crops in the same fields, which helped keep the levels lower, he said.Farmers could help the problem by planting more diverse plants, he said.”[The report] supports the argument that we should be looking at trying to install more parental plants around the landscape,” Turner said.The wetland buffers should be planted around the corn crops to protect the molecules from escaping the fields, he said. But the process is time consuming.”We got to this point after decades,” he said. “It’s going to take decades to get out of.”The biologists put together a database that will help ecologists and state authorities work on improving the pollution, Turner said.”[Authorities] in Louisiana are interested in having either regulations or economic incentives or ways to reduce the nitrogen coming down,” he said.—-Contact Joy Lukachick at [email protected]