Ground Corn Chicken Feed Clears Up Pond

Ground Corn Chicken Feed Clears Up Pond FARM HOME Miscellaneous 34-5-41 A few years ago FARM SHOW published a story on dumping ordinary corn meal into lakes to clean up algae in the water (Vol. 29, No. 6). The idea is that the corn meal competes with the algae for available phosphorus, starving the algae to death. I tried the idea on a 1/2-acre pond on my property, and it works great. However, buying corn meal from the grocery store gets expensive. I was spending about $80 per month. To reduce the cost I switched to using ground corn chicken feed, which I buy at a local feed mill. The corn is screened very fine. I buy 100 lbs. at a time. Using a scoop that I made out of a 1/2-gal. milk jug, I toss the ground corn over the side of my paddleboat. I do this about every 2 weeks from April until September. The ground corn clears up the water clarity within a few days and helps kill off pond weeds. The 100-lb. bag of ground corn costs less than $10. Because my pond receives runoff from heavy rains, I sometimes need to also add Cutrine Plus granular algaecide and pond dye as needed. (Bob Wenzel, W7619 Coyne Rd., Fond Du Lac, Wis. 54937 cell ph 920 238-1099)

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