I agree
I thank Ninethace for that information, interesting about the 4 molecules of N as my training was probably directed more at encouraging transpiration and absorption of CO2.
One of the areas greatest at risk from bag muck overuse is on headlands, which coincide often with Field Margins. Areas in receipt of grant money, which have not had their full value as explored as part of the access/leisure network, in consideration for the part the taxpayer plays.
These areas are part of conservation initiatives, yet it seems that minimal cultivations/management are encouraged. Probably part of the thinking from the set aside policies. Yet I recently walked in an area managed by the Woodland Trust, where they had used wild flower seed mixtures on boundaries alongside tracks and paddock boundaries. This had resulted in an astonishing increase of butterfly numbers and varieties in that area. Resulting a very pleasing walking experience.
One of the reasons for Field Margins is to create barrier both distance and ecological between the crop and a watercourse. Soil moisture moves through the soil structure, both downwards, side ways and run off on the surface. A good soil structure holds more moisture and an adventitious root system bulks up the topsoil, tap roots penetrate the subsoil so a mixed balance on the field margin takes out the available nitrogen being leached out of the soil, put legumes into the mixture it become self sustaining, however excess available nitrogen encourages more green growth so there is a self regulating barrier to a water course.
Farmers should monitor nitrogen levels from the field drainage systems, I did but that was nearly 40 years ago.
If we share in conservation costs, then we should be able to share in the amenities created.
A friends wife died from eating wild watercress contaminated with liver fluke, it was the secondary host the water snail that caused her infection, she was only a young mother at the time married to a farmer. Farmers have suffered from many the contaminants, they learn from these tragedies, because they are closer to those causes when they are unknown. Many of the advances in agricultural practice, fed a nation when it was besieged by German U boats.