We have a newly dug pond, approx 70' x 120', 16' at the deepest point, in heavy clay soil. It's about half full and really muddy. We spread 2 bales of hay around the permineter and within a week it was getting clearer, just like it is supposed to. Then we got a heavy rainstorm and now it's all muddy again. What is your experience with hay? Does the hay continue to help clear the water or is it a one shot thing. We haven't stocked any fish yet, but don't want to do chemical treatment.

I'm not familiar with using hay to clear muddy water. But, by adding hay (or any other organic nutrients), you can bet you'll have plenty of algae growing if and when the water does clear.

Hay will often work but it is way down the list of best methods. What is your alklinity ? If its not high consider ag lime (natural). There is a lot here on other methods.

Get grass or other plants growing on the exposed clay soil around the pond. The rains are washing clay into the pond and the grass will cut down on a lot of that. Look into alum treatments too. There's a good thread about it in this section "Alum kicks clay's butt" or something like that.

This is an old thread but I must comment that the hay worked! We spread two small bales around the perimeter of the pond (then the wind pushed it all to one end). Within a few days it had all sunk and in less than two weeks the water was clear. Rainstorms stir up muddy look but it quickly reverts back to basically clear. Apparently there is some enzyme that is released when the hay decomposes that promotes clumping in the water. Whether the clay would have settled out in time with no treatment we'll never know. There has not been any excessive algae growth. For a small pond I would definately advocate this as a cheap easy solution.

Good to know. Can you tell us the specifics of time and water condition and anything else you noticed?

I would like to see a presentation on barley straw... maybe at the next PB Conference.

I have a bunch of info on that from several sources. It is a very mixed bag for filamentous algae reduction and also on turbidity control.

We had a member, a couple of years ago, from North Texas that used barley straw to keep red algae at bay. As I recall, he had a pretty good sized body of water that had been decimated. So did all of his neighbors. He tried the barley straw and had the only non affected/infested water in the vicinity. I wish we had a follow up from him.

My uncle has had success with barley straw clearing up a pond that has a red tint to it because the pond is built in a shale bank.

Does anyone know if barley straw is more effective than wheat, or oats or alfalfa hay?
If it is I might decide to sew an acre of barley next spring and give it a try.

If you are needing it for algae control the concensis is the best straw to use is barley. However as Ewest notes, barley straw has lots of mixed results some good, some not so good, and some neutral. Not all algae and water chemistries are the same and those two big variables probably contributre to the mixed results.

Check your alkalinity before using alum. Alum make add acidity to the water, so that could mean dead fish in low alkalinity water bodies. I like to see the alkalinity above 50 ppm before we use it.

The good news with low alkalinity (yes there is one here) is that it takes less herbicides to be effective and less alum. However good point it can easily lead to fish kill better know what your doing.

Todd O told me about putting some hay around my muddy pond and also putting in some "cattle cakes". The idea I assumed was to keep the waves from beating on the shoreline and muddying
(is that a word?) the water. The alfalfa pellets were to entice the algae I think. I haven't tried it yet but plan to pretty soon. I've got to get something planter on the dozed areas around my pond first. Maybe rye will take this time of year?

It is getting late in the year but you could plant wheat or rye. Although this time of the year, it will take close to two weeks to come up.

Wheat is a lot cheaper than rye. And, perennial rye is a joke after the 2nd year.

Yea I put wheat out when I did a field just uphill from the pond but the clay\muck that is around the pond was pretty hard to plow. All I have is a disk and that stuff was like concrete. The wheat didn't take very well around the pond like it did up in the field. We've been getting a lot of rain lately so I'm thinking when the hunting buddies are down this weekend, I'll put them to work and see if we can get something in the ground. I'm thinking I need to fertilize maybe with something. Any suggestions?

If it's new ground you probably won't need to fertilize.

It's mainly the sediment that we dug out when I deepened the pond Dave. I'm not sure what all is in it. Mainly clay.

Wheat should grow just fine in it.

If it's sediment there are a lot of unknowns and remember that some of the fertilizer will end up in the pond. You can get a soil survey with recommendations from, I believe, TAMU. I would spread wheat and see what happens. At this time of year anything getting is started can be a crap shoot. However, wheat isn't all that expensive and I figure it is worth a try.

I'll give it a shot and see what happens.
Thanks guys