Soil Erosion Project to Benefit Potato Growers

Contact: Media contact: Laurie Osher, Dept. of Plant, Soil and Environmental Sciences, 207-581-2957; Nick Houtman, Dept. of Public Affairs, 207-581-3777

ORONO– The rain is falling like clockwork on a University of Maine research project designed to help potato farmers reduce soil erosion. Laurie Osher, assistant professor in the Department of Plant, Soil and Environmental Sciences, is working with support from the Maine Potato Board to test the effectiveness of a soil treatment that has been shown to work in the irrigated fields of Idaho and other western states.

Also working on the project is Joe Manzo, a Stearns High School student from Millinocket who is doing a summer internship through the statewide MERITS program. Manzo hopes to attend the Air Force Academy to study engineering and is gaining technical experience in Osher’s lab.

“This project is pertinent to the industry,” says Don Flannery of the Maine Potato Board. “As we look at our future water needs and become more competitive in providing the market with a quality product, this might be something else that we can do.”

Osher has conducted soil research to assist farmers and land managers in the U.S. as well as in Central and South America. She specializes in the use of carbon isotopes to determine the long-term impacts of land use, including agriculture, on soils.

“This is a Land-Grant university, and it’s important that we work directly with farmers and other groups,” says Osher.

Manzo and Osher have set up a rainfall simulator behind UMaine greenhouses on the Orono campus. Built by former UMaine engineer Rosemary Seymour, the machine consists of a sprinkler mounted on a platform about 12 feet high. It can saturate an area on the ground with a fine spray.

“We’re testing different concentrations of a chemical called polyacrylimide or PAM applied to the top of the soil. We spray it on the soil just as a farmer would apply it in a field,” says Manzo. The PAM used in this study is not the same compound as the popular frying pan spray used by cooks.

During a trial run, treated soil is put into a pan and held at a ten percent slope under the rainfall simulator. As water begins to fall, it forms a puddle and then starts to flow, along with any eroded soil, into a second pan. That runoff will be analyzed in a lab to calculate how much soil was eroded by the rain. The results will be compared to analyses from soil samples not treated with PAM.

Osher and Manzo are testing four different soils used to grow potatoes in Maine. Their results will be combined with additional research on the properties of soils treated with PAM and provided to the Maine Potato Board.

PAM treatment will be tested at a commercial scale before recommendations are made to farmers, adds Flannery.