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Farm pond water source?

R

rossow (mn)

Member
Perhaps a dumb question, but forgive me -- I'm in Minnesota, the land where 15,000 "ponds" occur naturally. Anyway, I drive through Iowa, Missouri and Kansas to get to the Tulsa gunshow twice a year, and I'm intrigued by the huge number of farm ponds along the route. They are lovely creations. My question: Where does the water in the ponds come from? Is it natural runoff, pumped, what?
 
It's mostly run off, there are a few spring fed ponds. One of mine is spring fed and the rest are run off. Today they are being filled to the brim.
 
Don't mistake lagoons for ponds. In some parts of KS where the soil will not perc right we use open lagoons. Some creative guy south of Colwich KS put up a diving platform next to his lagoon as a sight gag, but it sure would make you sick to swim there.
 
Most ponds at least in my area of Missouri are fill by run off from land higher up or by springs. I have 2 on my place that by definition are lakes due to having an inlet and out let as in a stream fills them but also a spring
 
We have both watershed and pumped water ponds around here.
Mostly depends on what kind of pond you have as to what water source you use.
Considering a pond can loose close to 4000 gallons of water a day per acre just from evaporation your watershed may have to be 5 to 20 times (or even more) bigger than your pond depending on how much rain you get.
 
While lagoons are supposed to be nasty places, and in Oklahoma have to be protected by a fence, if the septic tank is working properly the clear water effluent is pretty clean, and with sunlight, evaporation, and water vegetation, lagoon water is actually quite safe. I still wouldn't swim in one but I have swam in a septic tank with no ill effects. By the way, if you handle cattle it's pretty hard to keep manure out of your mouth at some point. Tastes like chicken.
 
Here in Southside Virginia if a farm pond has no stream or spring feeding it we call it a "sky pond" i.e. only source of water is rain.
 
I would say most ponds in Kansas are the result of runoff causing a ditch to start cutting thru the land. So a damn is placed to slow down the water some, and bennefit is a place to water livestock. All though on the reservation where they have a herd of bison, they dozed up a pond dike on the side of a hill. Must have wanted water pretty bad.. only has water after a 3 inch rain or more. Not seen it full yet.
 

On highway 39/51 in Illinois there are also ponds along the road. I asked about them and was told they were borrow pits. When they rebuilt the road some years ago they needed soil to build the overpasses. They dug these deep pits for the soil. Some are 90+ feet deep. They are filled with ground water. The ground in that area is pretty flat and the water has only one place to go, down. Then it seeps into these pits. I wonder if that's what you are seeing.
 
They are both spring fed and run off. Dad had 1 of each on the north farm. South farm was strictly run off.
 
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