Wisconsin Fertilizer Applicators Face New Rule for Larger Lots

Golf courses, businesses and land owners in Wisconsin that apply fertilizer to five acres or more of land must follow new state rules early next year as part of a plan to stem runoff into water resources.

Another portion of the new regulation, known as NR 151, goes into effect March 10 and requires property owners who are applying fertilizer to more than five acres of land to have a nutrient management schedule.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the University of Wisconsin Extension Service are working to educate landowners about the new rule.

"In terms of residents, they probably won't have heard much about it unless it's been done through their municipalities," said Mary Anne Lowndes, an urban storm water engineer with the DNR. "But they have to have five acres they are applying nutrients to, so most people are not going to be affected by this.

"The key areas are going to be golf courses, potentially school districts and even municipally owned properties, parks and those kinds of things," she said.

Lowndes said the Extension Service has been working with golf courses and school districts. Extension courses on this issue are filled around the state. Planners expect to hold one in Green Bay early next year.

Shorewood Golf Course on the UW-Green Bay campus put the plan in place this spring.

"We watch what we put down, where we put it down and don't put excess down," said Nate Rusch, the course superintendent. "There really wasn't a whole lot that changed."

Soil tests indicated the course had a high phosphorus level, so the course is no longer using phosphorus in fertilizers, he said.

"I hadn't been using a whole lot anyway," Rusch said. "I've got a plan that's written down now, but it's not any different than what I had been doing in the previous years."

It's a similar story at The Woods Golf Course on Green Bay's far east side, where course superintendent Ed Hoover will lay out the plan this winter. He doesn't anticipate it will mean drastic changes to the way the course is maintained.

"I don't use a lot of phosphorus anyway," he said. "I use a lot of … organic fertilizer, the phosphorus in that is all steamed bone meal, so it's all natural, it doesn't affect the ecology in an adverse way."

Hoover said he's taken the soil tests and plans to attend a workshop later this month on the new rules.

Even so, a number of golf courses likely will see some changes to their practices and it will also make superintendents aware of environmentally sensitive areas of the course, said Doug Soldat of the UW Department of Soil Science in Madison.

"They will have to make adjustments in most cases, most of the adjustments will probably be small," he said.

Small school districts could see a more dramatic impact, Soldat said.

"Some school districts may not have a person who has an extensive background in turf management, so they wouldn't be able to write a turf management plan and would have to go and pay … for a plan, so it can be a financial burden," he said. "A lot of these smaller school districts just don't have these resources."

DNR guidelines call for management plans that need to be written by a certified turf manager, someone who has a four-year degree in turf grass management or a related field, or a someone who has equivalent experience to that four-year degree.

"They want somebody with a professional background," he said.

Vijai Pandian, a horticulture educator with the UW Extension Service in Brown County, said Extension educators have been working with people in industries that could be affected, but he's not sure how many people outside of those fields may know about the changes.

"In the case of a homeowner, if they have more than five acres of turf grasses, I'm not sure they are aware of it," he said. "Since it's a new thing to most of the commercial green industry and consumers who have big properties, I think they need to go through a training workshop to know what … are the technical details behind it. It needs quite a bit of training.

"They need to know the soil properties, the hydrology," Pandian said.

Fines can run from $10 to several thousand dollars for each day of a violation, if one is found, he said.

At The Fertilizer Store in Bellevue, owner Cecilia Turriff said large land owners, municipalities, large corporations, hospitals, churches, and golf courses — among others — could be affected by the new regulation.

"It's not meant to discourage people from fertilizing … the idea is to stop just dumping fertilizer all over the place," she said. "And to use the correct product so you get the maximum result."

To Learn More

Interim guidelines from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources can be found online at:http://dnr.wi.gov/runoff/stormwater/techstds.htm.
Additional information can be found from the University of Wisconsin: www.turf.wisc.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=6

A copy of NR151 is available at: www.legis.state.wi.us/rsb/code/nr/nr151.pdf

The Fertilizer Store can reached at: 920/884-5244.