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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Toxicology, Pollution and the Environment
Volume 12 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1457970
This article is part of the Research Topic Legacy & Emerging Contaminants in the Aquatic Environment View all 9 articles
Spatial distribution of available phosphorus in surface road and trackway surface materials on a sheep farm in Ireland
Provisionally accepted- 1 Teagasc Environment Research Centre, Wexford, Ireland
- 2 Moorepark Food Research Centre, Teagasc Food Research Centre (Ireland), Fermoy, Ireland
- 3 University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
Farm roadway runoff is a high-risk source of pollution when connectivity with waters occurs. Nutrients in this runoff are dominated by fresh animal deposits, but recent dairy and beef farm studies showed that available phosphorus (P) accumulates in roadway surface material and can be lost in runoff. A current knowledge gap is to examine available P concentrations in unsealed roadway and trackway (non-maintained) network of a lowland sheep farm. The present study focused on a 45 ha farm stocked with 544 sheep in south-east Ireland. Ten locations were sampled along with the adjacent fields for available P (i.e., Morgan's P) and ancillary parameters (e.g. pH, total P and heavy metals) in December 2022. The first sampling location was on an aggregate roadway and the other nine were on trackways representing an older aggregate roadway network used by the flock but now covered with soil and grass. Results showed a distinct difference in surface material pH between roadway and trackway locations. Trackways had a pH that mimicked adjacent fields around the agronomic optimum for grassland of ~6.2. All sampling locations had elevated available P concentrations, ranging from 26.3 to 111.0 mg L -1 (mean 62.8 mg L -1 ), similar to the spatial distribution for dairy farms but above those found at beef farms previously studied. The highest available P concentrations were found in roadway and trackway sections adjacent to the farmyard. Other elevated sampling areas were on trackways (87.3 or 97.7 mg P L -1 ) away from the farmyard where sheep are funnelled to pasture, stop to seek shade, urinate and defecate but do not graze. By contrast the average available P concentration for the surrounding fields was 8.4 mg L -1 with a range of 2.7 to 15.9 mg L -1 . Two sampling areas create a critical source area where a high available P source becomes mobilised as runoff during rainfall, discharges into an open drainage ditch, which is then connected to a local stream. Breaking the pathway before runoff enters the ditch is a cheap and effective way of mitigating nutrient losses at these two locations.
Keywords: Agriculture, Nutrient transfer continuum, Critical source area, Water Quality, Soil
Received: 01 Jul 2024; Accepted: 03 Sep 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Fenton, Daly, Tuohy, Cardiff, Leach, Sifundza and Murnane. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Owen Fenton, Teagasc Environment Research Centre, Wexford, Y35 Y521, Ireland
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