Team:UMaryland/Human Practices
Human Practices
Phosphorus pollution is a global issue and exists anywhere that farming and agriculture exist. In order to understand the scope of the problem, we decided to speak to local experts to learn about how the issues of nutrient pollution are remediated in Maryland. We also learned a lot about agricultural and state policy regarding these issues while speaking to nutrient management experts at the Maryland Department of Agriculture.
7/8/2021- We first reached out to Dwight Dotterer from the Maryland Department of Agriculture. Mr. Dotterer is the Nutrient Management Program administrator at the MDA. From this meeting we were able to learn how big of an issue nutrient pollution is, the expense to mitigate the issue, and nutrient management techniques currently in place in Maryland. We also learned about the current issues with measuring phosphorus levels on farms. Mr. Dotterer mentioned that farm runoff would be a good target for filtering out phosphorus pollution. We incorporated this advice in our design as we made our bioreactor specifically to work in farm runoff. Rather than our design being implemented directly in the bay, our project had a change in direction to be implemented on farms instead.
9/22/2021- We followed up with Mr. Dotterer along with a few of his colleagues at the Maryland Department of Agriculture. We spoke with Ms. Alicia Mulkey who is the Program Planning and Development Executive Secretary, State Soil Conservation Committee. Through this meeting, we learned more about the bioreactor component of our project. Bioreactors on fields in Maryland are not portable and buried underground. These large bioreactors are not ideal as they take up field space and are more difficult to manage for farmers. Thus, the goal of our project to create a portable bioreactor was further reinforced. We also learned that the largest source of phosphorus pollution in Maryland comes from animal manure, and thus an ideal location for a bioreactor would be farm runoff.
10/6/21- Dr. Toor is a phosphorus expert at the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Maryland. The main takeaway from this meeting was that there is no main solution for the issue of phosphorus pollution. There are multiple small solutions that have been implemented to filter phosphorus out of the bay and runoff. The MDA has implemented strategies such as the regulatory phosphorus management tool and annual progress reports on phosphorus levels. Bioreactors are also used, but there can’t be a bioreactor on every field due to cost and required maintenance. Our solution is effective for locations where the runoff has high phosphorus concentrations and to manage phosphorus levels on a smaller scale.
7/9/2021- Our project is based off of the 2016 Purdue iGEM teams project. In order to learn more about this team's procedure and thought process behind the project we reached out to the team advisor Dr. Jenna Rickus. Dr. Rickus was helpful in clarifying our questions about the specific lab procedures used to test and encapsulate the E.coli. This meeting shaped the protocols we used in the project and our general project goals.