Nutrient loads to the Baltic Sea have increased during the last century, and primary production has probably also risen. However, the evidence of such a rise is circumstantial, and most of the available findings concerning primary production cover only brief time periods. A more appropriate type of data in this area is Secchi disk measurements. We present the results of trend tests applied to Secchi depth values recorded during two discrete time periods: 1919-1939 and 1969-1991. We performed a step trend test to compare the data from the two periods and applied a monotonic trend test to the later series. Both tests showed that Secchi depth decreased by similar to 0.05 m yr(-1) during both periods. Calculations of changes in chlorophyll concentrations suggest a yearly increase of similar to 1%. Extending the calculations to represent primary production indicates an increase of slightly <1% yr(-1). These calculations, however, are unreliable due to substantial uncertainty regarding the relationships between Secchi depth and chlorophyll concentration and chlorophyll and primary production.