I find myself asking this question more and more. Where I live, I can explain it, or at least attempt to, by the fertilizer run-off from lawns. But if the water is that fertile, why doesn't it bloom phytoplankton instead and shade out the FA slowing it down? There seems to be some missing pieces. Whenever I visit my Dad, I take some time to take my son and until lately my dad to some of my favorite ponds. I know for a fact that none of these ponds are less than 60 years old. Yet not one of these ponds is plagued with FA. Most all have a ring of some type of emergent pond weed. Generally the clarity is good. Every pond is in a cow pasture where no provisions are made to separate the cattle from the pond. I really can't say how much weight of fish they carry but the fishing is very good with many, many large BG and HBG caught. The bass tend to be lean but we always seemed to catch at least one >14" and numerous smaller ones (mostly my dad who targets them).

The ponds are old and you would think they would be eutrophic but they appear to have a lot of life left in them. Fast forward to here. Post after post of ponds early in life rendered an FA mess and I just wonder why. What are we doing differently or overlooking that creates this problem? TP are a biological method of dealing with the problem. I like a biological fix to a problem but the fix doesn't always align with goals or even the law for that matter.

Any ideas as to what most prevalent factors are to the FA epidemic?

It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers