HUTCHINSON, Kan. —The spring flooding has left some farmers with fields that have suffered damage due to soil erosion.

Darin Busick with the Reno County Extension Service says the erosion was significant in some areas. “Defiantly some gully erosion…a foot deep some a foot and a half deep,”Busick said. “There was a lot of topsoil that was swept away by the water.”

The damage was done over a period of several weeks but takes much longer than that to recover.”It takes years…I mean hundreds of years to create that topsoil so it’s not a good thing to lose that,” Busick said noting that the topsoil in this area is very shallow.

“Our topsoil isn’t much. You can get into some areas like Iowa and Illinois and some areas like that, they have feet of topsoil while in our area we have inches and so it’s easy to lose it.”

Another problem from the erosion can be water pollution due to chemical and nitrogen runoff. “ You can lose nitrogen that way, it leaches…that’s how it moves through the soil is water,” Busick said. “ Sometimes that can get in your water tables but I haven’t heard of any major cases where water was contaminated.”

Busick says the extension service has advice and tips on how to get your field back into farming condition and help stop erosion.  For more information go to www.reno.k-state.edu.