Healthy Soil, Healthy Oregon

Plants need nutrients in order to provide us with the food and fiber we need to survive. And while farmers are cost-conscious, over 50% of the fertilizer applied to major U.S. crops washes out as runoff or leaches into our water supply. The result is wasted money for farmers, contaminated drinking water and increased incidence of toxic algae blooms in our rivers, lakes and streams. Unused nitrogen fertilizer that leaches into groundwater or washes into streams can lead to nitrate pollution in drinking water from wells and eutrophication and hypoxic zones in freshwater and coastal waters. The human and environmental health concerns about nitrogen ...