Muck Soils Research Farm EarthCache

Welcome to the Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center!

This cache is placed with permission from MSU and the management of Corey Marsh

This is an earthcache about the former Muck Soils Research Farm, which opened in 1941 and closed in 2012, which stood on the current site of Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center.

In the spring, summer, and fall, you will need mud boots.

Muck Farms

A muck farm is a drained wetland ecosystem used for agricultural purposes, often used for farming vegetables like onions, carrots, celery, potatoes, and various root vegetables. At the Muck Soils Research Farm, the vegetables researched were mostly carrots, celery, onions, potatoes, sweet corn, radishes and lettuce. In many Great Lakes states like Michigan, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, as well as the state of Florida and the Canadian province of Ontario, muck farming on drained wetland ecosystems is a common part of agriculture. Muck farming likely has its roots in Dutch and Slavic immigrants coming to the United States. 

Pumphouse

This location gives you a good view of the pumphouse. Pumphouses are facilities containing pumps and equipment for pumping water from one area to another. Often, they are used in infrastructure systems, like supplying canals with water, removing sewage, and draining low-lying land.

History of the Muck Soils Research Farm

The Muck Soils Research Center was established on the Michigan State University’s Bath Township property in 1945. Interest was growing in the four million or more acres of muck land in Michigan, and the State Board of Agriculture approved $5,000 to be used in starting a new experimental muck farm. Corey Marsh was a natural choice for the location of this new experimental muck farm, as Ernest Anthony, the Dean of Agriculture, describes in his address to the 23^rd annual MMFA convention: “Fortunately the College has had in its possession since 1855 over 200 acres of undeveloped, excellent muck land, located in the Corey Marsh near Bath in Clinton County. The land is the last of the original grant of land made when the College was first established. It is located in a larger body of excellent muck of better than 1,000 acres which forms the Corey Marsh. It is quite uniform in character, running from four to twenty feet in depth, with a large proportion more than twelve feet deep, and it can be drained without difficulty." Early developments included clearing twenty-five acres of light brush cover, installing a pumping station, and establishing electric power. Arrangements were made to tile drain at least twenty-five acres that year, with more to be cleared and tiled as needed. An improved road was constructed to the center of the operations. It was also planned to build a house for the farm foreman and necessary tool sheds and other buildings to house the equipment. The initial 25 acres were broken and fallowed in spring 1941, and experiments began in 1942. 

Soil Types

Sapric

Muck farming is often done on sapric, a soil type consisting of mostly organic matter. More specifically, muck is a sapric soil that is often naturally waterlogged however it may sometimes be artificially created. Sapric and muck are dark-coloured deep soils often found at marshlands. 

Ecosystems of Corey Marsh

Emergent Wetlands

Emergent wetlands are shallow-water wetlands often occurring along the shores of lakes, ponds or streams. Often they are mostly made up of emergent narrow and broad-leaved herbs, grass-like plants, shrubs and floating-leaved herbs like duckweed. Emergent wetlands develop on any texture of glacial sediment, including rock, sand, silt, gravel, and clay. Typically there is an accumulation of medium to high pH basic or neutral soils and fine organic sediments lying on top of the mineral soil. If the organic sediments become acidic, the wetlands tend to develop into peatlands instead of remaining as a marsh.

Shrub Wetlands

Shrub Wetlands occur throughout the state of Michigan and often have very many tall shrubs within the ground vegetation shrubs, covering at least half of the shrub wetland. The shrubs are often high but below 20 feet and very dense. Shrub Wetlands form in kettles (depressions in a glacial outwash drift) and other depressions on a variety of landforms. They develop on saturated or flooded organic or mineral soils of varying depth.

Wet Prairie

Wet prairies are native lowland grasslands most frequently occurring on level, saturated or seasonally inundated stream and river floodplains, lake margins, and isolated depressions. They are most frequently found on outwash plains or channels near glacial moraines. The soils of wet prairies are primarily loam or silt loam of neutral pH with high organic content. Wet prairies are often found near lakes and ponds but not directly next to them, usually separated by an emergent wetland or a shrub wetland. 

There are three steps required to log this cache. Please message me the answers to the first 2. 

1. At the posted coordinates at the end of the trail, take a look at the surrounding marshland ecosystem. Given the vegetation and soil type, does it look like the marshland is an emergent wetland, shrub wetland, or wet prairie? Explain why or why not. (Right answer not required)
2. In the situation of a muck farm, why might a pumphouse be useful? 
3. Take a picture of yourself, your group, or a personal object from the posted location. Post this in your log.

FTF: LunaLobo
STF: ScouterSteve
TTF: IFollowRoads