NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM—1965 393 
H. Department of Agriculture 
The United States Department of Agriculture sponsors a few 
projects in the Great Lakes area through its Cooperative State Experiment 
Station Service. These projects are not all carried out in the lakes 
themselves but pertain to the Great Lakes area generally. As might be 
expected, the Department of Agriculture generally evades programs in the 
aquatic sciences leaving these to departments or bureaus with more closely 
aligned missions. 
1. Farm fish pond management 
a. R. C. Ball, Department of Fish and Wildlife, Michigan 
State University. 
b. To estimate production of plants and animals per unit ~ 
area or volume of water in the farm type ponds and natural ponds. Determine 
to what extent fertilization of ponds will increase production of fish food 
and fish. Devise practical management of programs for farm ponds including 
the number of fish to plant and harvest. To detect and measure possible 
detrimental affects of use of fertilizers in fish ponds. 
c. The release of stored nutrients in subaqueous soils is 
measured by adding chelating materials to the waters by chemical methods. 
The paths of nutrients added to the waters are evaluated and traced through 
tagging with radioactive tracers. The carbon-1l light and dark bottle 
technique is used to measure the rates of fixation of nutrients and 
accumulation of organic material. 
2. Physiologic response of aquatic organisms to pollutants. 
a. P.O. Fromm, Department of Veteranary Medicine, Michigan 
State University. 
b. ‘To determine the physiological cause of death in those 
aquatic animals most susceptible to pollutants and establish the sympotoms 
of sublethal amounts of those pollutants. 
c. The kinetics of surface binding of chromium cells are 
studied as are the metabolic response of intact fish to chromium containing 
waters, Permeability of fish skin is also studied. 
3. Mechanisms of biological production in streams. 
a. TT. F. Waters, Department of Entomology, University of 
Minnesota. 
b. To identify the plant community serving as the primary 
producer of organic matter in streams and the relation betwean organic 
production and such environmental factors as nutrient content, light, and 
temperature. 
