One conservation practice in use at Proving Ground Farm is a cascading waterway.

Michael Back, a postdoctoral scholar in Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences’ School of Environment and Natural Resources, said a cascading waterway is a great best-management practice.

The cascading waterway at Proving Ground Farm is located in a field between the activities building and the farm house and has three basins to capture water that drains from the east woods and two neighboring row-crop fields.

The flumes that capture water are slated to be removed in the next year or so as the Harmful Algal Bloom Research Initiative grant-funded project has wrapped up. The results are being compiled.

Back, who has a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology and is based in Wooster, visited Proving Ground Farm on Tuesday and took samples as part of his work through a second HABRI grant.

He used a meter stick to measure sediment accumulation and took soil samples. Results will be compiled from the secondary study by the time his role ends in February 2028.

Sediment accumulation data has been collected from all 14 cascading waterways in Ohio.

Back’s travels on Tuesday took him to three others – one in Putnam County and two in Defiance. He then visited cascading waterways in Warren and Fayette County on Wednesday.