Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » University Park, Pennsylvania » Pasture Systems & Watershed Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #368275
Research Project: Sustaining Agroecosystems and Water Resources in the Northeastern U.S.

Location: Pasture Systems & Watershed Management Research

Title: Forms of nitrogen and phosphorus export from an agricultural peatland

Author
item Kennedy, Casey
item Buda, Anthony
item Bryant, Ray

Submitted to: Hydrological Processes
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/26/2020
Publication Date: 12/13/2020
Publication URL: https://handle.nal.usda.gov/10113/6885228
Citation: Kennedy, C.D., Buda, A.R., Bryant, R.B. 2020. Forms of nitrogen and phosphorus export from an agricultural peatland. Hydrological Processes. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.13671.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.13671

Interpretive Summary: Nitrogen (N) export from cranberry farms is controlled by the processes that produce, consume, and transport N in soils. A team of ARS researchers discovered that the form of N export reveals minimal production or rapid consumption of nitrate in cranberry farms. These results suggest that cranberry farms preserve aspects of natural peatlands that reduce the export of nitrate, which is the most mobile and ubiquitous form of N in the environment.

Technical Abstract: Cranberry agriculture is an important part of the economy and landscape of Massachusetts, which is the state’s most valuable food crop. Nearly 20% of North American production of cranberries is harvested from close to 5000 ha of farmland in southeastern Massachusetts. Despite its regional significance, wetland protection laws, water use restrictions, and water quality regulations challenge sustainable cranberry production in Massachusetts. In this study, we measured nutrient inputs and outputs to a large, 20.2-ha cranberry farm in Plymouth, Massachusetts. We combined our results with other studies to characterize nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) loading rates for cranberry farms. We found that a major source of variability in N loading rates is related to the specific hydrology of cranberry farms. We propose a classification scheme for non-riparian cranberry farms that is based on groundwater hydrology, which has important implications with respect to N load allocations via total daily load implementation. We determined that wet harvesting contributes up to 32% of the annual total P load in surface water, but that cranberry production is uniquely adapted to remedial strategies along the lines of containment, treatment, and trapping. Given that about half of the harvest flood P loss was in the form of organic P, surface applications of P-sorbing materials that promote flocculation, such as aluminum sulfate, are best-suited to sequester P from the harvest flood.