aquatic plant harvesting phosphorus removal – Aquarius-Systems https://aquarius-systems.com Surface Water Management Equipment Fri, 10 Apr 2026 20:59:08 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://aquarius-systems.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cropped-favicon-32x32.png aquatic plant harvesting phosphorus removal – Aquarius-Systems https://aquarius-systems.com 32 32 Buffalo Lake Harvesting Removes 13 Million Pounds of Weeds https://aquarius-systems.com/buffalo-lake-harvesting-prevents-growth-of-487-tons-of-algae/ Fri, 26 Aug 2022 15:07:51 +0000 https://aquarius-systems.com/?p=3699 Congratulations are in order to Buffalo Lake Protection & Rehabilitation District! Our customer recently mentioned they removed 1300 loads of weeds so far this year with their fleet of Aquarius equipment.

Buffalo Lake is actually a flowage consisting of 2500 acres and is very shallow with a maximum depth of 8 feet. The shallow waters along with a mostly muck bottom create the perfect setting for aquatic plant growth. And, when Wisconsin lakes have a bad weed year, Buffalo Lake has a really bad weed year.

Stick with me on the math.

  • 1300 loads x 10,000 average pounds (lbs) per load on each harvester =13,000,000 lbs of wet weeds
  • Estimating a 5% dry weight = 650,000 lbs of dry weeds
  • Estimating a dry weight phosphorus content of .3% (to be confirmed by a lab) means that 1,950 lbs of phosphorus was removed by the harvesting program this season.
  • Generally speaking, 1 lb of phosphorus can support the growth of 500 lbs of algae.
  •  The Aquatic Plant Harvesting program prevented upwards to 975,000 lbs of algae growth in Buffalo Lake.

Read More: Phosphorus Removal by Plant Harvesting on Lake Minnetonka

Aquatic Plant Harvesting: An Economical Phosphorus Removal Tool in Urban Shallow Lake

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