A Sarpy County Farm Pond

[Chasin 'eyes]

Can you buy seed mixes to add to the pond? We have the same issue with our pond and are trying to find something that would work.

[Chad]

Not sure... good question.

[Chad]

From Daryl.

Yes you can, probably more likely that they will be plants to transplant or tubers, BUT . . .

Local varieties will be the best for your area. Even though you might order a species of aquatic plant that is found in your area, if it comes from some nursery in Wisconsin it might not survive. For that reason we recommend transplanting. Transplanting roots or sprouts from other waters will work and that is best done in fall or spring.

Of course you have to be careful where you get your plants for transplanting. You cannot just go digging up plants from public lands and waters and you better be sure you have permission from any landowners or pond owners on private lands and waters.

Daryl Bauer
Lakes and Reservoirs Program Manager
Nebraska Game & Parks Commission
daryl.bauer@nebraska.gov

P.S. Please feel free to share this message with others.

[live2fish]

How is the farm pond project going? Have you done any of transplanting you planned to do this spring or decided which aquatic vegitation to introduce?

[Chad]

Originally Posted by live2fish

How is the farm pond project going? Have you done any of transplanting you planned to do this spring or decided which aquatic vegitation to introduce?

We are going to introduce cattails as a start, but we're still waiting on the NRD to close the drain. They have said it's too cold to be doing that kind of work. So we wait... Everything hinges on them getting it closed soon!

[Chad]

Have you ever had a friend that gets you into the strangest circumstances. For me, that friend is Teeg (aka, the Fish Recycler). When he's around, there's no shortage of adventure. So it was this morning, long before dawn, as I found myself dragging a giant tarp through a marsh loaded with cattails while Teeg tried to manage the weight and muck of an overloaded wheelbarrow.

Like a half dozen other mornings in the past year and a half, Teeg and I were determined to make more progress on our pond rehabilitation project out in Sarpy county. Our challenges on this particular morning included:

1) Convincing our wives at 3:00AM that, "Everything's fine, hun; just goin' fishin'; go back to sleep."

2) Legally collecting as many cattails as possible from location A and transporting them across the city to location B for transplant.

3) Confirming that the NRD had closed the pond's drain so it could begin to refil and slowly flood the cattails.

4) Finishing the whole thing in a handful of hours, cleaning up at pond side, changing, and heading into work without smelling like a marsh.

It wasn't a clean 4 for 4, but the deed got done.

I had in my mind that we would collect and transplant 100 cattail rhizomes. We managed 10. Hey!!! it was really hard work... and it was muddy... and our neoprene waders were really hot and tough to garden in... and it was dark... and it was really muddy... and it was very dark... super dark and very muddy and certainly hard work... and all the laughing at ourselves made the work go more slowly.

We laughed the hardest when we envisioned the look of bewilderment on the faces of friends and family when we shared the pictures of our pitiful stand of 10 cattail clumps with them, "Yep, we planted those alright. Aren't they just adorable."

So anyway, here are the pics. Hope you enjoy them. And yep, we planted those alright... Aren't they just adorable!





So what is to become of this stand of cattails? Will they take off as cattails are known to do and populate the shores and shallow water in the pond adding aquatic health and vitality and sequestering enough nutrients to prevent under-ice algae blooms that then die off and create oxygen sags, killing the biggest bass and perpetuating a predatory imbalance that leads to an overpopulation of stunted bluegill? No, of course not... I mean yes, sure they will... Well... let's just go with 50/50.

Regardless, Teeg found these cool mushrooms.

[Shorty]

Digging up cattail rhizomes is a chore, been there and done that. If I had known you were doing this today I would have given you some advice. Look for the small new emerging green shoots just a few inches above the water line and then dig those rhizomes out.

[Omaha]

Any updates on how this project went over summer?

[Laramie]

Just glancing through the post cause I work with this stuff alot and noticed this part of the thread...
Quote:
3. Can you see the 4x4 post directly above the outlet pipe? There's an electrical box on that post. Does someone knowledgeable about dam design know if that is some kind of pump/drain?
I am not a dam engineer, but I have never seen any dam designed with any kind of electrical pumps. Toe drains may be present, especially in large dams, but that water drains by gravity. They haven't had a pump there to pump water to a tank for watering livestock have they?


Daryl was close on this I think! But the 4x4 with the little box on it is most likely a Cathodic Protection test box. Cathodic Protection prevents corrosion of the polymer coated pipe joint(weakest link in an outlet tube).
This box allows the NRD or owner of the dam to check the life of the anode that's doing the protecting.
I also noticed the cattail rennovation project if you will. Are those hybrid cattails or native species? Id bet they are the very fast spreading hybrid, and I guess the next question is are you not worried that your pond will be over-grown with cattails? Typically with a structure like this the lifespan is around 20 years, in other words the pond will be filled with sediment to a point at which depth will become a problem. It will start filling from the upper end towards the spillway. And I would guess that in the 10 yrs or so since its been built that upper end is pretty shallow already. You could see some huge cattail recruitment there.
Judging by the low amount of aqautic veg there either one of two scenarios would be the cause Id guess. One...they used quite a bit of the pond area as borrow for the dam, hence the steep banks and amzing depth of the pond or two you must have quite a large cropland watershed and subsequent run-off directly into the pond? Any filter strips or anything upstream that would alleviate the excess pesticides or fertilizer from running off? Anyways just some things that caught my eye.
Looks like a really nice pond though, for sure.