08/28/1997

Pond Management Tips Offered at Clanton Field Day

CLANTON, Ala. - Alabama has some 50,000 small, private ponds that are used for everything from irrigation to livestock watering to fishing. According to Michael Masser, associate professor of fisheries and allied aquacultures at Auburn University, proper management of those ponds can make a world of difference to those who love to wet a line.

Masser gave tips on pond management during a recent field day held at the Chilton Area Horticulture Substation (CAHS) in Clanton. The field day, which drew some 125 people from throughout central Alabama, featured a wide range of subjects including fruit and vegetable production, goat husbandry and food preservation demonstrations. The CAHS is an outlying research unit of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station.

According to Masser, research on pond management began at Auburn in the 1930s when a faculty member named Homer Swingle came to Auburn. Swingle loved to fish and, though his expertise was in entomology, he persuaded his dean to begin researching farm pond management strategies. He later convinced the Alabama Legislature to fund further research, and his efforts led to the development of Auburn's Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures, which is now one of the leading fisheries departments in the world.

"The research done by Swingle and others at Auburn in the 1930s and 1940s has showed us ways to manage these ponds so that people can have more fish to catch and eat," said Masser. He noted that ponds are much like vegetable gardens. To be productive they must be seeded (stocked), limed and fertilized, weeded and harvested.

For those thinking of building a new pond, Masser said site selection is vital. "You've got to build the dam right or it leaks. You've got to have enough watershed for the pond to fill and not flush," he said. He noted that the Natural Resource Conservation Service (formerly the Soil Conservation Service) provides site selection and construction assistance for new pond construction.

Once a pond is built and filled with water, the next step is stocking it with fish. Swingle's early work helped establish the proper balance of fish in the pond and found that bluegill bream and largemouth bass are the ideal co-inhabitants of farm ponds.

Masser explained that these two species work well together because bluegill eat insects, worms and vegetation in the pond and can spawn three to five times each year. The bream provide food for the bass and the bass help control bluegill populations. If these two species are stocked at appropriate ratios, farm pond owners can maintain their ponds without having to constantly restock.

Other fish species, such as shellcracker bream and some catfish, also can be added to the pond to diversify the fishing options. He noted that catfish will compete for food with bream, so stocking catfish will likely mean fewer bream to catch. Grass carp also should be stocked in farm ponds to help control aquatic grasses.

Stocking levels, said Masser, will depend on whether a pond is fertilized. Adding fertilizer (phosphorous is the predominant need for most ponds) to a pond helps promote growth of microscopic plants, which are the basis of the pond's food chain. It can be expensive, however, and he suggested weighing the cost of fertilizer with the pond's use and site characteristics. Liming ponds also is necessary to control acidity in the water, which helps fertilizers work more effectively.

Before fertilizing ponds, Masser said soil from the bottom of the pond should be tested to determine what levels of lime and fertilizer are needed. He noted that it's easy to overfertilize ponds and promote too much algae growth in a pond. This can result in oxygen depletion of the water, which can cause fish kills.

Harvesting fish from farm ponds is also vital to keeping the species in balance, said Masser. He noted that, unlike public fisheries, private ponds can rarely be overfished and bass in particular should be harvested from the pond to ensure that they will grow to appropriate sizes.

Masser noted that detailed information on farm pond management is available through local Alabama Cooperative Extension Service offices and in Extension Circular ANR577, "Management of Recreational Fish Ponds in Alabama."

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News from:

Office of Ag Communications & Marketing

Auburn University College of Agriculture
Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station
3 Comer Hall, Auburn University
Auburn, AL 36849
334-844-4877 (PHONE) 334-844-5892 (FAX)

Contact Jamie Creamer, 334-844-2783 or jcreamer@auburn.edu
Contact Katie Jackson, 334-844-5886 or smithcl@auburn.edu

08/28/97